Minecraft VR
by 13swabra
Summary: minecraft has been released for the beta test in Virtual Reality format, follows the character named Player and the team he finds along his travels, finished now, but i will accept requests here for use in my next story, Gemblade VR.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter one- Minecraft VR!

After 10 years of the game Minecraft being released, a VR (virtual reality) version was announced, the rules were simple. To clear the game, you have to defeat the Armored Ender Dragon. Before this however, the game is to be released as a beta test, this story follows the character known as (player) amongst the other testers

Today was the start of the Beta test, each of the Beta testers was given a bonus chest, and a unique 1 time only ability to help clear the game. There was no world creation here; each player was assigned to one of 8 worlds. I sat down on my computer and booted up my rooms VR software

When I emerged in the game, I was greeted by the sight of a tree, and the games GUI which looked about the same as the old computer one, saved for the fact that it followed me around, and could be turned off. I looked around and stopped quickly, I was on top of a tree, and the ground was nowhere close to me, I opened the inventory which was accessed by touching a backpack that had been created, there was nothing to help me there.

As a test, I tapped the tree a few times. The block had a small crack in it by this time so I figured that was how you harvested blocks in VR mode. After I found this out, I proceeded to destroy the entire tree I was on.

When I finally reached the bottom of the trunk, I was at 28 units of wood, which was useless for pretty much anything right now, I opened my inventory again, and clicked on the wood, where two options came up, split, and craft I split the wood into two piles first, giving me a good chunk to use later, next, I crafted the second pile into planks, equalling up to 56 planks using craft, I continued on to create a crafting table, and 8 sticks, leaving me with 48 planks remaining, next up, I looked around, and found a place with stone. I tapped the table, and the command Place appeared, I activated it, and put the table beside the stone. In order to craft on a table, I tapped it, and scrolled down a menu pop up till I reached pickaxe, using up 2 sticks and three units of wood to craft it. Next up I opened the inventory, and tapped the pickaxe, equipping it.

To mine, I discovered, you tap the block needed with the tool you want to use, proceeding in this manner, I got 14 pieces of stone, back at the crafting table, I got rid of 8 stone for a furnace, the used up a good deal of my wood in order to make charcoal while I was waiting, a chicken came around. I had to chase the thing around for a while but eventually it was taken care of, and I got my chicken meat, as well as the usual feathers, and an egg. After quite some time, the charcoal was done, so I made chicken, and used the rest of it to make torches for the night

As soon as I was finished setting the torches, the world changed to night, and the sounds of bones creaking filled the air.

-end of chapter one-


	2. Preperation

Minecraft VR

Chapter two: preperation

"Well this is just great", I muttered, no house no armor, and no weapons, looks like tonight was going to be a major pain. Before anything showed up though, I went to my crafting table and made a sword out of wood, it wouldn't be much help, but I'd rather it then my fists.

Making the sword wasn't much use though, as nothing showed up around my area, and I ended up clearing the area of leaves. Next up on the list though, was to make myself an axe. Once that was done, the area was cleared of tree stumps.

But now my hunger bar was pretty much empty, so I had to use the Chicken meat, and the egg, and it still wasn't quite enough, so I had to go out hunting. When I came back, I had a total of three chicken meat, and two eggs, though now night was about to fall

During the night, nothing exiting happened, however I did find out some trees seem to not give out logs which was reported as a bug to the Admins. My Axe also broke, which was annoying, but the axe breaking apart instead of vanishing did add a nice touch to the game.

At daybreak, I made a total of 45 stairs so I could head down in the world, and hopefully mine something to use as armor. Before that happened though, I made a stone pickaxe and a stone sword.

Setting up the mine was pretty boring, so I won't bother anyone with details, but anyhow, after a while of digging, I fell into a drop mine, which sucked because of the fact I landed right beside a zombie, which didn't take damage unless it got hit pretty hard with the stone sword, and then I got ambushed by both a skeleton, who was a complete pain to fight, seeing as I had to place blocks to fight, and then a spider, both of which nearly dropped my health down to nothing, I did manage to make it up with enough iron however, to make part of my armor set, as well as some coal.

When I got to the top of the mine, it was night meaning id have to look out for monsters while watching my furnace. Once again however, the night proved uneventful, and my boots and helmet were created, and equipped, before I went into the mine a second time to get more materials for the iron set. Thankfully, this time I seen a group of skeletons before I dropped, so I was able to avoid a death, which would be pretty bad, seeing as pretty much everything was with me at the time.

Once I got back up, work resumed on the iron set, this time leading to a chest plate, but I'd need to go down there another time to finish the job.

The last trip for a while consisted of me getting rid of a bunch of skeletons, spiders, and creepers. Iron ores weren't exactly plentiful, but I got enough to finish the set, as well I ate some more chicken, and now, I think it's time to start hunting to get into the Nether

-end of Chapter two-

Preview of Chapter three: announcement

An announcement from the games creator catches everyone off guard, and shatters Players confidence, what will happen if no one can even find the Armored Ender Dragon?


	3. Announcement

Minecraft VR: Announcement

It has been a few days since then. I managed to build a house, and a bow in that time, as well as updating my cave system, some people however, have stopped reporting in on the Beta tester Forums, which is slightly odd, but I didn't think much of it at the time, since I figured they probably wanted to clear the beta after the time they spent helping everyone, and messing around wherever their homes were in-game.

Anyhow, today I was mining around again, trying to find diamonds to use to make a Nether portal, when I was teleported Above-ground. The world was different now though, as the sky was replaced by a system announcement, and about a hundred creepers were waiting around a group of players, as if they were being kept out. I checked the menu, and sure enough, there was an E-mail stating that the Creator had gotten bored of the current test, and had decided that if any players died in-game, they would no longer be able to play Minecraft VR, or the original, and, through a special deal with the VR office, their house would be permanently banned from accessing any VR software, which meant they would lose pretty much everything they owned would become useless, as well as the bit where if they Didn't play VR, their house would be disconnected as a breach of contract.

There was a second note however, that made things look even more like this guy wanted a massive brawl, everyone was now allowed to make their own personal Weapon, provided they had the in-game recipe to do it, and the listed materials, and guess what? Players only were given one recipe, and Player-kills were now enabled, meaning once the announcement stuck in everyone's mind, A massive brawl would ensue, I looked down at my recipe –stained-black blade, any sword with 80% durability or more, and 2 units of Coal, with the recipe placed in any other slot. There was one crafting table around, so I ran there and made the weapon. This weapon wasn't pixelated like the normal ones. It was two-handed, durability was roughly diamond, and it was pitch-black. At about the time I realized my blade had become a major gathering point for attention, some idiot started shouting that my recipe was hacked-in, and that whoever got it must be a Cheater, so the crowd rushed straight at me, completely unarmed, and no one had any special weapons on hand, this would have been pretty easy, but then the creepers came and went boom, killing pretty much everyone instantly, and almost getting rid of me, thankfully though, my blades block stopped an additional 30% of damage, at the cost of about 1% durability per block, I walked around the ruins, and grabbed every recipe I could find there wasn't many left, but there was enough that I ran out of space, and had to return home.

When I got there, I pretty much fell asleep instantly. Next I stashed every recipe, including mine, in the chest beside my bed (yes, recipes are not destroyed when used). There was one recipe though, that detailed an armor that was even higher grade then diamond. This legendary armour was made by combining 7 wool, 1 diamond and the recipe, the cloak has an auto heal battle skill,, pretty much rendering base enemies useless,, but there was still fall damage, and with the new risks in place, it would be too dangerous to play how he normally did, for now, survival would be necessary, and maybe later, once he found even more rare equipment, then he could head for the extra worlds, since most people wouldn't dare to play seriously anymore, heck, he himself would probably get told not to play like it's a game when he got home, but anyhow, diamonds were still needed, so it was back to the caves for Player, now Known as The Cheater.

-End of Chapter Three-

Next chapter will be up when I find enough diamonds so it may take a fair amount of time anyhow, on to the preview

Cheater

Ever since the announcement, people haven't been trying near as hard to Clear the game, but with the Special equipment, it may be possible for a small group to Clear, but who is left that is willing to risk their lives to Clear the game for others at the request of the one who's referred to now as Cheater?


	4. Cheater

MINECRAFT VR: Cheater

Well, it's been about two or three weeks since the last report, so I guess I can run things down quickly, even though I'd rather be sleeping with the creepers around my house lately. First off, I've made a new item, a cloak which has exactly 2 health worth of durability, but it renders any attack that deals 1 or less hearts as damage useless, I've also made a diamond pickaxe, but I haven't went to the Nether, as my regular armor sucks, and I'd rather a raiding party be around when I entered there. Oh, and I was pretty much sent into solitude because of my new title, Cheater, which is kind of annoying, but whatever, I might still be able to do something. As well as that, I built a farm so that I can at least have a nice bread supply. Anyhow, on to more important stuff then my past.

Today was the day I was finally planning to go over to a nearby player village, and see if any of them were willing to help out on a trip to the Nether,, which I had the ability to access. When I got there however, things went a little out of hand.

"traveller, cease at once, entry into the village is strictly forbidden" one of the sentry players said, trying to imitate toughness, and making him look even more like a scared kid

"Hey, relax guys" I said, switching to my sword, then sheathing it on my cloak "I'm just here to recruit…" I stopped as the two guards drew out twin Iron swords, as well as a third guy pulling out a bow.

The Archer shot an arrow at my chest, it sunk in, but I drew my sword, and readied my block "guess these thugs don't want to talk after all" I muttered.

The two swordsmen weren't all that smart either, as they pretty much took turns swinging at my sword while Mr. Archer shot normal, unenchanted arrows. After a while, as I expected, their swords snapped in half, while my blade was at roughly half durability, just for effect, I switched to an identical copy of my blade as they readied their second set of swords, and the little game continued once again, and guess what? The exact same thing happened again, except that the archer had run out of arrows, and he was smarter, and left the area. Eventually I spoke up, " iron swords have an attack strength of 3 points, a normal block reduces that damage to 1.5 points, which would still be a decent amount of damage, but, my sword has a bonus +30% to blocking strength, at the cost of some durability, which leaves your damage at less than half a heart per hit."

I stopped for a minute to let their heads process just how badly I had them beaten before one of them shouted out the million dollar question, and sure enough, one of them asked it " but even then, we've hit you many times, so you still should be dead, even if you are this Cheater guy.

At this display of arrogance, I had no choice but to laugh at these two, and then continue on a bit more "well, that would be the case, but you two fell asleep when the announcement was on, as such, you didn't get the message, but I'll explain it anyhow." I then went on about the recipe system before continuing on

"this cloak isn't the standard black one, this cloak is a recipe cloak, it reduces any damage less than a heart to totally zero, at absolutely no cost, in short, I could have stood here all day, and you would have just worn yourselves out, and, that's before I even used this swords offensive power, I was coming to see about a trip to the Nether area, but if this is the best you can do, then I'm better off soloing it, this is pathetic."

With that, I walked back to the house I was staying at, and these guys proved once again that they were completely inept by sending an entire group in with bows to attack me, I just walked into my house and let their arrows run out, then went outside, and quickly reduced every one of their health to a single heart, and walked back inside, letting them figure out that that much damage was done after I tore through their armor like paper, when I sat down to check my equipment, I was level 45, and all my swords were reduced to pretty much no durability, but hey, at least I had fresh bread to eat in the morning, right?

-end of chapter 4-

Preview

Proposition

Some people from the village sneak up to Players house at night with a proposition for him, but can these people be trusted, or is it a trap?


	5. Proposition

Minecraft VR Chapter 4

Sometime while I was asleep last night, a group of players from that village earlier approached me, something about wanting to make a deal of some sort. They are currently asleep in my storage building, not sure why, but it's better than them being in my house, so I guess I better go and see what they want.

When I got into the Building, a fair bit of the were already awake, so we set up a new building, to be used solely for meetings inside my camps boundaries, then we eventually got settled down to business.

"Which one of you is going to speak?" I asked the group, few of which looked like they even knew how to hold a sword and bow properly, eventually however, one guy among them did speak up

"well, seeing as how the rest of the group seems to have lost their voice, I guess that would be me"

"all right, then." I turned to face said man "what was the purpose of disturbing my sleep, or even entering this property for that matter?"

"well, you see, the guards from our village said that some kid was talking about the Nether, and beat the guards without breaking a sweat, we figured we might as well see if this guy is actually capable of doing that, and if he is, then maybe getting a lead group going to clear this game" the man sat down, still watching Player

"well, I'll let you know, I've already been down to the Nether, and from what I've seen, you people are nowhere near ready for that kind of fight, so if you do go down there, it will be after you get my permission, which is going to mean you will be stuck here for a full month, or longer of training" I replied slowly, after which the man got up.

"Well, sounds like this group is going to have one long stay here, but if you don't mind, you know anywhere we can stay, we kind of got kicked out of the village for showing up here"

At this I looked up, this one guy might just stand a chance, but the rest of them sure as hell were going to hate me for the month, "sure" I replied, "you can use my training area, refurbish it for your needs, just keep the base structure around, and if any one of you uses my chests, ill personally kill you"

With that, the meeting was pretty much over, and the training to get together a lead group had begun. A lot of them were pretty much useless at first. But slowly, everyone got more used to their weapons, even if they were still using pretty much useless tactics, at least they had some sort of idea now.

The guy who spoke up at the beginning, went by his real name Alex, was still the closest of the bunch to a decent fighter, and frequently needed to go outside to find anything that was worth his time, but sadly the rest of the group was barely able to either hit anything with a sword, or aim at anything with their bows.

Soon enough though, the builders had built a huge camp out of the small base I used to have, which meant that they would probably be sticking around for a decent amount of time, but while they were doing that, I was around the map trying to find out where to find enough diamonds for recipe parts for everyone, as from my single trip down to that area, I knew that area would rip them to shreds without any struggle, I was also practicing at the facilities though, seeing as they managed to set up a sparring area, where the rule was iron equipment and wooden swords, which led to several people getting mad at me, simply because they kept getting floored within seconds, despite the fact that I wasn't using my proper equipment.

Alex managed to find a new recipe, which he used in short order to create a more offensive based sword then mine, by using Lapis Lazuli and a diamond to tip an iron blade, his blade became a deep blue color, lost the pixelated look, and did extra damage to fire based mobs, as well as being almost as powerful as a standard diamond sword, with one last bonus, the ability to reset a creepers explosion timer. From watching his training, it looks like he is pretty much guaranteed a spot in the lead group, which was probably going to be ready in about another month, but for now, I guess Endermen will be my toughest opponents.

End of chapter 5

Preview of chapter 6 – clash of blades

Before the lead group is formed, The groups must compete to see if they can manage to survive a 30 day trip to an area known to be overrun with enemies, who will manage to make the lead group?


	6. Clash of Blades

Minecraft VR Chapter 6: Clash of Blades

I stood around the gathered betas, Alex beside me "final exam time, we are going to go into a desert area where at night, Sieges are guaranteed to happen at the speed of one in about ten minutes, your job is to survive there for thirty in game nights, without leaving, all you bring in is what you have now, let's go"

With that, I led them into an area that Alex and I found, it looked like it was the leftovers from where we teleported too to get the recipes and all that, but it was so riddled with Creeper explosions now I couldn't be sure, meanwhile, Alex and I had our own dangerous job to do.

Lately mobs had been getting close to our base, and I had heard that Soul sand, an Item exclusive to the Nether might slow them down enough that Archers stand a chance, but in this Game, the Nether was on Siege permanently.

When we set foot in the Nether, Alex and I built a cobblestone construct around the portal, as well as a small pathway, guarded by fences of course, and when Ghasts showed up, we would launch their attacks, disabling them, but there was no Soul Sand around, so we needed to look around outside the safe zone, which I would not recommend at all by the way, anyhow we were just going back when a stray arrow from one of us hit a Zombie Pigman. We both shifted immediately to swords, this fight was going to royally suck.

The first Pigman to com at me charged with a diamond sword, I blocked that attack, then parried it away and slashed it twice, creating an x shape through its body, that Diamond attack did some damage, which I really wasn't happy about, since it meant these things had enchantments somehow.

The next Pigman came at me with a diamond sword obviously fire enchanted, as it was on fire, this one would be a pain, I slashed at it, its sword deflecting mine, thankfully though, the extra momentum led to the next hit going critical, which gave knockback as well, Piggy didn't stop there though, and charged in with a couple other zombified freaks. This strategizing was really unusual for mobs, thy just didn't coordinate, they seemed to be thinking ahead. When I charged forward, one of them would deflect, while the others swung, after I noticed this, a Ghast showed up and shot at me, I retreated, allowing the explosion to hit the three piggy's, and start them at each other.

Once that happened, I ran back, giving me time to switch to my enchanted blade, one that cost me a full 50 levels to get, it was my standard black one, enchanted to maximum knockback, fire aspect, sharpness, and looting, meaning its fire was pitch black, and the blade had morphed to an almost Katana like shape, although the end near the guard was still too wide for it to be called that, I rushed in once again. This time, the three piggy's didn't get close enough to try more than one swing each before the blade launched them into Lava.

After that, we ran straight out, my blade ripping the enemies that came in half, Alex launching a volley of Arrows into the Horde of enemies, soon though, we made it into the portal, when we emerged though we see a new kid walking into the base, he had short, messy blonde hair, and an Iron chest plate, with a bow strapped to his back, he looked at us and introduced himself

"so I guess you guys live here in game, huh, my names Liam, mind if I rest here a bit"

Eventually, we set up a Netherrack house for him to use, and we all settled in to see why he was here. Turns out, this kid survived the explosion of creepers by standing on top of the stands, then jumping as they exploded, which launched him into trees, either this guy was lying, or he had the best luck on this world.

Soon enough though, we found out that his bow wasn't for show, he was probably the best shot in the game, meaning I told him he could stay here, but when we went to go to the Nexus again, he would be leading the ranged division, as well as the usual rules for people staying here, all of which he accepted, even though he pretty much laughed off my threat to kill him, which was surprising, but not really unexpected, I was starting to think he didn't take anything seriously.

Over the next few days, we built up the defences around the base, since we still had several days until the recruits were allowed to leave the desert, which we checked daily now, there was roughly 25% of them left right now, but they were doing pretty good, some of them had managed to build sand and sandstone houses, and someone had brought in dirt to use to make wheat, which was pretty smart, but wouldn't last long unless they were guarded when a siege came.

Soon enough though, it was time to welcome the lead group back to base

-end of chapter 6-

Preview of Chapter 7 graduation

The few that are left have been chosen to run in the lead group, but some people don't seem to be able to handle having three leaders who didn't get tested, how will the three be able to handle this situation?


	7. Graduation

Minecraft VR Chapter 7 Graduation

When our group, now comprised of three people: Liam, the archer who doesn't miss, Alex, the expert on killing anything related to fire, and me, the guy people called the Cheater walked into the battlefield, it was like a meteor shower had hit, decimating the landscape.

Following protocol, Liam went as high as he could, while Alex and I looked around. It was Day right now, But Spiders still were around, and led to a nice amount of EXP for the archer, our people though, were strangely absent from this area, soon enough though, we found out why as an army of Creepers showed up, and began their massive assault, just like the teleportation siege, except here, we stood a chance.

Liam switched to a bow I had given him. This bow had flint installed directly into it, so a flame started, and increased in size as he pulled it back, in addition, it had an enchantment on it that knocked enemies back. Alex switched to his Anti-fire blade, the reflective surface creating an effect that looked like a small light blue Aura was being given off by the blade.

Personally, I switched to my Enchanted Blade. This one was the same as the one I had used in the Nether siege, except now the Black flames were out of place, as they were something that belongs in a fire realm. So they set the ground on fire whenever I swung it.

The base strategy was simple, Liam kept the enemies from crowding Alex as he took out their explosion abilities, and they both stayed away from anywhere near my blade, allowing me to swing at anything that moves, while knocking Creepers back far enough that they Couldn't explode even if they survived the fall.

After that was done, we went to another zone in the Desert, where there was a small group of Players, some that Alex Recognized, so we went in there, only to be greeted by one of the Tough guy trainees, who obviously had a problem with Liam and Alex not being in the Desert and still getting into the lead group.

Before anyone could be attacked, the rest of them showed up, some evidently scared of Mr. Tough guy, others looking rather bored, then, he opened his mouth, and proved just how dumb he was

"Oh, look here everyone, the Cheater and his little toys are going to try and get us to go back, well then, why don't they fight us to do it"

At this I switched to full combat gear, all enchanted one way or another, and spoke up "well, I prefer not to eliminate players, but it looks like I have no choice here"

At this he charged head on, trying to get in close enough that he didn't have to worry about my sword. My blade went right through his, reducing all its uses to zero

"look, if you really want to, we could try again, but this time, bring enough people I don't twitch and win, all of your gang can charge, and you still can't win against us.

At this, about 90% of them charged forward, and every last one of them lost the game completely, next, an arrow broke the leaders armor just as I stabbed him, engulfing him in a massive column of flame, we searched the rest of the desert, but it looks like Alex was likely the sole survivor of the town from earlier.

When we got back to base however, a small amount of people were there, all of which I recognized from training, there was a group of survivors who waited for the moment the last day ended, then came back, meaning we had a lead group after all.

I led the Lead group into a hidden cave inside the farm, where they all got recipe weapons, giving them an equal amount of power as the rest, then they were all assigned to one of the three leaders groups, Alex and his group got the equipment that let them get hit massively, and still hold their ground. My group got Equipment that let them move across the battlefield a lot faster, focusing on decimating the enemies. Liam's group got all the Archery equipment, meaning once the Lead group got used to team fighting, we would be able to Advance to the World of Fire, Nether.

To get the group trained for this, we constantly hunted Endermen, who are close enough in difficulty when teamed with skeletons that we could get some practice in. Every so often, a new member would join the lead, but so far, not a single lead group member has gotten killed, we were running low on food though, so we needed to find a new place that could house the new legion.

-End of chapter 7-

Preview of Chapter 8 Shortage

The lead group has been created, but supplies are low, to continue to survive, the group must create a farm, but there is no Animals in sight, so a scouting trip is now needed.


	8. Shortage

Minecraft VR chapter 8: shortage

"well, our food supplies frankly won't be enough to last us the month" Alex reported in.

the recent influx of people into the facility was nice, but with it came several problems, finding enough food was one of the major concerns, and of course, nothing was spawning around the large area where everyone trained, and the occasional zombies meat was something nobody wanted to eat, so the cooks refused to even touch it now.

Eventually it was decided that we would send four scouting teams out to look, two of which would be handled by Alex and myself. The Head cook would naturally lead the third group, and the fourth was led by Liam, who nobody argued about anymore.

My group went to the south eastern area, which was highly populated by forests that we hadn't had the need to go into yet. Eventually we found an open area where chickens were roaming freely, and started to build a farm. Before we could do much but clear trees though, one of the members remarked that they had found an shack with a farm surrounding it. This farm, he explained had enough of everything for our group.

When I got there however, a girl I didn't recognize was watching us, like she was expecting us to attack. She had shoulder length brown hair, eyes of the same color, and a red shirt mostly covered by a full iron set, including a sword that I'm guessing she knew how to use, seeing as she had lasted this long without any assistance

I gave the signal that I was going in solo, and approached her "would this happen to be your farm?" I asked, careful not to say anything that might offend her, seeing as we were technically intruding in her zone

"Yep, but I don't plan on leaving it, if that was the next bit" she said, all the while continuing to gather chicken eggs.

"That wasn't the idea, but we need to find some supplies for the rest of us back at my school" I continued on

"Wait, so are all these people you know from the real world then?" she asked

"Ah no, actually, I run a training camp a bit away from here, these guys train there, and decided to come along"

"Well, we could make a deal then" she replied, even though it was obvious she was hoping to get in "I can use your facilities, and you can use mine"

"Fine" I said, seeing as this was probably the best deal we were going to get "I'm called Player, and you?"

"I'm Kira" she answered "even though I didn't have to say that, seeing as you didn't use your real name"

With that, we all went back, minus Kira, who said she had some stuff to do before she could meet up with us back at the Facilities. When we got back, she was already waiting in the kitchen, which was a pretty big surprise, seeing as nobody actually told her how to get to our area. Soon after this, we were getting almost daily shipments of bread, and sometimes chicken. As agreed, Kira was given Access to all the training facilities, as well as the portal, which she didn't enter, saying that there was still a lot to explore in this world; she didn't need the other one just yet.

Eventually Alex and I decided to give her one of the recipe Swords from our personal stack, this one had Knockback, as well as a unique ability that allows her to move at twice the normal speed when she dealt damage for a few seconds, which soon earned her the nickname of the Bullet among the rest of the team.

There was still a bit of tension in the air though, after all, we still hadn't advanced anywhere in the Nether, and people were starting to grow impatient, saying that With Alex, Kira, Liam and I around, The Nether wouldn't be much of a challenge, none of them had any idea where the portal was though, and I had the area around the mine closed off, so we were safe for now, but soon we would have to get moving, and end this game once and for all

-End of Chapter 8-

Well everyone, I was having some issues accessing the site, but everything is fixed up nicely, so I can finally continue to write this

Preview of Chapter 9: apprehension

With unease spreading through the group, Player announces a trip to the Nether, but inside, doubts cloud his mind, is this the correct path?


	9. Chapter 9

Minecraft VR 9: Apprehension

Alex's Point of View

The past while, Player has been fighting insanely recklessly, and the rest of us it was pretty problematic. Liam couldn't get access to any spare arrows, Player had used them all up a week ago, and Kira couldn't come close to getting enough Chickens going to justify his reckless use of them. The blacksmiths over in resource were getting grumbly too, he wrecked several swords a night, and as they said, diamonds are hard to find. Personally, I was a little more worried about the rest of the camp, if he got beaten, then they would all be forced to fend for themselves.

Kira was doing all she could though, even though she was usually busy tending to food, she did manage to show up everywhere once in a while, and cheer up the group enough that they wouldn't cause any trouble. Hopefully tonight we could all catch up to him and figure out what was going on.

Players Point of View

Today was the day of the strategy meeting between the Four Captains. I was the leader of the speed group, Alex had control over the rear lines, Liam controlled the Archers, and Kira was chosen to head resource control.

When I got there, the rest were already assembled, but for whatever reason, they were really tense today.

"What's the problem everyone" I asked, figuring it was some more rebellion that we didn't have time for right now

"You" Alex answered "you're wasting our supplies on your night time excursions, our groups don't have enough materials now for the trip"

Kira continued on from this thought "whatever your reasons, you can't continue to risk everyone like this"

I was caught a little off guard, "how much was I using per night" I asked, wondering just how bad this was

"Three full arrow stacks, two swords, and a bow" Kira answered, her voice having a slight quiver, like she had been up too long, and was feeling the effects badly right now

So eventually, I ended up explaining about my mom, who relied on the VR technology in our house to do everything, from getting up to ordering food, and even working. Without it, we wouldn't be able to survive a week, let alone long enough for the doctors to find a way to fix her inability to move.

Once that was taken care of, we set it up so the captains were a lot less likely to do any actual combat, and Kira promised to set up an area near her farm where I could use the fenced off area for my own purposes.

The rest of the meeting consisted of battle tactics, as well as us finding a way to survive the problems siege mode would pose. Everyone was still a bit on edge, but seeing as there was a lot riding on this event, we couldn't afford to mess up here.

The next week or so consisted of our whole group going on a worldwide resource hunt. My personal job was to find all the animals I could, and get materials from them, as well as anything extra I could find to increase our weapon store. Kira was out finding sugar cane and cocoa beans to make extra food, as well as milk to make cake, which was highly valued by now. The rest of the people were each given various support jobs, with Liam and Alex supervising.

After a while, I found several Abandoned Mine shafts containing new recipe weapon blueprints, but these ones were strange, each one required a recipe weapon in the materials list, and the recipe didn't have the unlimited tag on them, instead, they said they could only be built inside a Nether Fortress. When I got back, everyone was already preparing for a practice siege, this one was an overworld siege, meaning that we wouldn't be fighting the same enemies, but we would still be forced to use strategy to last the night. We stepped into the desert just as the timer reached the 1 minute to go mark.

I set my equipment, my max enchanted blackstained blade, a full iron set, and the black cloak with weak null enchantments. Alex went with his water set, giving him an appearance that looked like a mirage in the desert. Liam had a set that boosted his archery skills to the max at the cost of armour points. Kira used the set we gave her, a set of iron that used leather straps instead of iron to give her increased movement, and an enchanted recipe blade with massive knockback power. Once everyone was set, there was a full five seconds of waiting

5…4…3…2…..1

SEIGE MODE ACTIVATED

With that, all hell broke loose, and our carefully planned strategy became useless. Creepers marched in massive groups, the skeletons shot from far to long distances, and the zombies were pretty much endless.

None of us had time to think even. The first zombie approached me, and got its helmet ripped off it as my blade cleaved its head in half. They were getting a little too close though, so I figured now would be as good a time as ever to go wild. The next one I met was sliced diagonally, and the fighting continued. Soon the Zombies all disappeared as the Creepers used some form of primitive strategy to blow themselves up to launch the spiders. Then I noticed something. The remaining zombies didn't vanish because of the explosion; they used the spiders to retreat.

This fight was insane, the enemies themselves were too much, the only way we could win is if we could get rid of the skeletons, but they were being covered by the army.

Spiders though, gave us a chance, a very small one, but one none the less. I slashed my sword not at the spiders, but just above them, letting the black flames transfer each time. When they switched, the desired effect did take place. The fires spread across the army, quickly reducing the army to manageable sizes. My group was exhausted now though, so we switched with Alex's group. After a while the sun came up, ending siege mode.

When we got back, we set up a new plan; this one should give us a better chance at survival. Now all that there was to do is wait to finally use it.

-End of chapter 9-

Chapter 10 preview- siege

After all this time, The group finally makes it to the Nether. The siege of flames threatens to engulf the whole group, and the enemies themselves come from a nightmare. Will the group make it through unscathed?


	10. Siege

Minecraft VR 10: Siege

It was finally time to begin. Training had been going on for months, and with the addition of the add-on weapons, there was even more incentive. The new strategies should keep the team safe, and the four commanders were all considered almost like gods. But would it be enough?

All this was going through players mind as he walked through the pathway to the Portal. This time there would be no minute to ready equipment, it was a war zone the whole time they were in there, with siege mode active it would be even harder. Thankfully, Kira had set up a counter strategy for siege modes intelligence boost for monsters, so we should be fine.

When the group finally got to the portal, everyone set their equipment to the maximum possible. Player and his group all switched to high mobility armour, while player himself stuck with the black-stained set that had kept him safe so and his group switched to higher armour rated parts, the water design of Alex's gear refined to the degree of a receding wave, and his blade so captivating, it was nicknamed the Siren Song Blade. Liam and his group had the gear of Archers. And Kira and her group had various leather and Iron parts, Kira herself used Recipe parts that were created from a mixture of the two.

The group stepped into the Nether, and were greeted by a giant screen

3…..

2…..

1…..

SIEGE MODE ENGAGED

And this gave me just the Idea of how insane Siege mode is. The second we all emerged from a bunker Alex and I set up a while ago, we were assaulted by endless hordes of zombie pigmen, which reminded me of the first time I had been around here, and had been forced to use the flames of my blade to survive. Now however, the flames were under control. When I slashed, the flames followed the blade, the rest of the time they were barely noticeable. The pigmen reached me just in time to become barbeque, but unfortunately, I couldn't keep this up forever, and the tides had barely any dent in them, seeing as the archers were having problems with keeping the Ghasts off our backs. Alex was probably the only reason we were alive right now, his set being made for this kind of fighting. Magma Cubes were a prime target for him, as their molten core was extinguished the second his blade hit them.

Kira appeared beside me soon after, and we lead the two groups back to the castle. We had a problem it seems. The Wither itself was on route, and that kind of a nightmare just screamed problem, seeing as nobody knew what kind of nasty updates it got on Conversion. We returned to the battlefield soon after, seeing as we had nothing to go on.

What we had was chaos. I ended up getting hit several times by Zombie pigmen just because of numbers. Eventually we got rid of the mobs, but now we could see the Wither, and it was moving rather fast, meaning that my group would be held responsible for its defeat. Then we noticed its size, and figured out that this wasn't the normal Wither, this was a legendary armored form of the thing. This version used a slightly smaller texture, but it was covered in armour that resembled obsidian, and its three heads were all covered by armour as well, meaning arrows were completely pointless. That wasn't even the worst part. The thing was given spikes instead of the fin like parts the old one had. This just had to be a nightmare, but either way, we would need everyone to help out here.

Alex and Kira appeared beside me, both with diamond swords, seeing as Alex's recipe weapon would be of no help here. The rest of the lead group stood back, waiting for us to give orders, but we were all stunned by the fact a legendary mob just happened to spawn in siege mode, where they were not supposed to be allowed to. It happened to go straight towards the group of players, and it happened to come right at a time when we were all tired from battling, hungry, and hurt a bit too from various attacks.

Kira was the first to snap out of it, and book it straight for higher ground. Liam was next, but his arrows were almost no use here. Alex and I managed to hit it a few times, but the armor was blocking every hit, and my flames weren't affecting it.

The rest of the Lead group ran straight for the bunker, and dived into the portal, so of course it was us four versus an incredibly fast, incredibly dangerous, incredibly armored snake with wither abilities, this could be the worst situation I have ever been in.

-End of Chapter 10-

Preview of Chapter 11: Black Flames

The battle against the First Legendary Boss rages on, and The recipe weapons aren't a match for the beast, faced with this, how will anyone survive?


	11. Black Flames

Minecraft VR chapter 11: black flames

Okay, so maybe it was a bad idea to come here after all. Maybe it was a bad idea not to run when we heard the Wither was around. Maybe we weren't ready for something like this. The Withers screams jolted me back into what I guess could be called reality, if that word even exists in this game.

The four of us all were tired, but at the least our Health was restored, because I know one thing right now. The Armored Wither was incredibly dangerous, and if we didn't pay attention, we would die.

The wither finally came, and started to glow when it got hit by arrows, charging for its attack, which im sincerely hoping is the same one as it used to be. I moved to get behind it, but its three heads were annoying me. Suddenly my health dropped by two points as one of the spikes from its fin like parts hit me.

"great", I thought, "we really needed another disadvantage here"

Alex was having the worst time of all of us; he wasn't used to fighting something his blade didn't have its damage modifier available against. The only one doing anything here was Kira, whose armor flexibility let her take advantage of swords characteristics. The Wither was barely taking any damage though, arrows were doing nothing, and even my black flames were extinguished before they could do enough extra damage to do anything, and on top of that, knocking it into Lava did nothing, which would have been helpful if it had worked.

We fought for a long time, none of us doing enough damage to it for any major effect, and it not being able to hit our moving targets. The main problem was that we couldn't keep such an enemy at bay forever.

Suddenly, flames shot up beside me, courtesy of the Netherrack, and happened to give me an idea for how we could do this, even though this would probably be the absolutely dumbest thing I have ever done. I aimed my sword at the Netherrack, and struck one right in front of the Wither at the same instant that I released the flames I had held back the entire fight, letting the Netherracks burning properties take over, creating a massive Wildfire even this thing couldn't run away from.

Alex came by, and switched to the water sword, using it to stop the black flames from hitting our group. Liam dropped down from one of the towers, and used the flames to cause his arrows to alight, giving him a chance to attack. Eventually, the Wither ran, its health nearly depleted. We all ran straight for the portal, glad to be back in the overworld where that thing couldn't reach us.

When we reached the overworld however, the portal turned pitch black, and the area was filled with the black flames. We all ran, and once we got away from the room, sealed it off. The Nether may be unlocked for now, but with those black flames around the Portal, it wouldn't be safe going to the Portal room, much less the Nether, where the flames could burn everything. When I reached home that night, I put every enchanted black-stained blade in a lava well, and then put the recipe for it in my inventory, guaranteeing no one could ever access that kind of destruction.

When we met with the troops who were left, most having fled the area after the Wither disaster, we learned that somewhere in the world was a NPC who would trade Eyes of Ender for Emeralds, which would mean we no longer had to go down to that realm, or if we did, it would be a trip we could run away from if that thing showed up again.

Several nights in a row however, I kept having a strange dream where the Wither was tunneling upwards, the fires chasing it, and it had this feeling that whatever it was searching for could stop the flames, then it would fall, some force pushing it into the fires, like it wanted the thing to be mad when it found us. I had a feeling it was the games creator, trying to make things even more difficult than they already were.

Without the flame ability though, my sword was pretty basic, and was frequently outclassed by diamond swords with pretty much any enchantments. If the Wither ever does manage to make it above ground, could any one stop it? Were we doomed to fail, or could we find the trader in time? Needless to say, I wasn't sleeping very well anymore.

-end of chapter 11-


	12. Search

Okay, I'll start off by getting some housekeeping stuff out of the way, because the recent problems I've been having with this site have caused me major headaches, and as such, I may have a chapter done but be unable to post it, so sorry about that. In addition, while people are always complaining about chapter length, I do a full chapter a day, so there is a very good chance that I will run out of stuff to say, and end the chapter early, or else I'll be taking days off at a time to brainstorm, which is annoying, but anyhow, enough of this little explanation-rant thing, you guys came for a chapter, so let's get going.

Minecraft VR chapter 12: search

It had been a couple of days since the black flames incident had sealed off the Nether, because for whatever reason, these flames never go out, and with their annoying growth, The group of Four had elected to seal anything related to my black flames, meaning I lost my blade recipe, as well as its Nether update recipe, meaning I was stuck hunting for diamonds today to work on a new set since my black one was of a lot less use without the Block ability the Blade gave me. The rest of the group got another annoying job though, search for a village with clues to the Eye trader.

Doing this took me all over the map, seeing as we had run our supply dry during many exercises with trainees. Eventually, I found enough to create a new set, the wolf gear set. This set was speed based like the previous one, but it also helped with damage, and the sword that came with had the ability to give +15% to critical damage, as well as standard diamond skills. The cape this time around speeds up movement by 10%, and the armor set itself gave +2 to damage, if I couldn't use my black set, a set like this was about as good as it could get. When I enchanted the sword however, it gained a new skill, wolves attack anything I point the sword at.

Once that was done, I went around the map, getting a pack of ten wolves, easily enough to take out pretty much any non-boss mob, and as long as no armored bosses show up, I shouldn't have to worry about getting killed.

The buildings in town were all full, but nobody had any news on villages we could go to, and unless the map expansion was added in soon, a lot of people won't bother to explore new areas, since we can't add a supply line to an area we can't find.

Thankfully the lead group was busy though, each of us was trying to find a village in farther areas, using multiple maps to chart our path through the world nobody knew their way around.

Searches were important for another reason too, strongholds were hard to find, and without one of those, even if we could find the eyes, we couldn't finish the game.

While searching for one of them, I found an area to serve as a secondary base of operations for field workers, and built a massive foundation out of birch, as well as a supply depot for the people who might have to travel through this area. There was a massive cave system nearby too, so coal was in no short supply.

Eventually I went back, and shared the location with everyone else, giving us a new area to search around in without worrying about food. Kira proved herself a lifesaver and went between the two areas daily. We soon had a massive amount of bread, and enough resources to amass an even bigger search for the villager. When the search team was sent, I went to rest, and soon passed out.

It was that same dream again, the Wither running from the flames, even its speed not enough to do more than advance. Right before I woke up, its head broke the surface. At the same time, the flames reached the overworld.

When I got up, the sky was filled with Blaze, the fire unit usually only found in the Nether. I didn't even try to fight, I just ran to the obsidian fortress, the only building in the overworld that was built solely to stop the flames. When I closed the door, I was greeted by the three others, all outfitted in full battle armor.

Kira spoke up first. "Looks like the Wither lost its ability to break obsidian, but it's gotten an even worse power"

I looked outside, and seen the Wither in the Overworld. Its three heads had changed into heads similar to an ender dragon. The spikes were replaced by scales covering the entire body. It had wings reminiscent to a skeleton. And its last, terrifying feature was the black flames surrounding it like a sphere, for some really random reason, I got the feeling it could use them a lot better than I could.

Lastly, its name had changed

-EVENT BOSS- Wither Hydra

You know, I was really, really hoping that was it, but of course, it decided that the first thing to go would be the houses, and torched the entire residential district, annihilating about a month's work in several seconds. I might have mentioned this before, but I really am starting to dislike black flames. Kira, Liam, Alex and I switched into our full battle modes, and prepared for Minecraft VRs first event battle


	13. Event Boss 1

Minecraft VR chapter 13: Event Boss-Wither Hydra-

Well, today couldn't get much worse. The Wither had appeared, been engulfed by the flames I created, and changed into the first Event Boss in Minecraft History. It had burnt the entire training complex to the ground, probably killing 10 to 20 people with its fires. Now it was aimed at us four, and I bet it wasn't in the mood to run away this time. The only thing luck has given us this day is that The Hydra doesn't seem to be capable of any non-wood block destruction, so we shouldn't be that bad off rebuilding if we can survive sir ugly.

It lunged straight at me, the wings giving it speed even my wolf armor could barely keep up with. My wolves were still around, the stone wall having kept them safe from the earlier flames, and now charged at the boss. Unfortunately, they all got taken out after doing about a hit each, the damage barely even denting the Hydras extremely tough hide. Alex was too busy keeping the flames off our backs to do much damage, Kira was evacuating the rest of the trainees to do anything, and Liam's flame arrows were being burnt to a crisp before they could even damage the Boss. Looks like I'm the only one who can do anything, even though I have next to no practice using a suit like this.

I kept moving, trying to get behind it, but its flying ability meant my close range style wouldn't be able to reach it in time to do anything until it comes down for an attack, at which point I could deal a small bit of damage, but the knockback itself is dangerous, and if I got hit, the wither effect would likely kill me off too, so I'm in a bad way myself. Again, I am really starting to dislike this thing.

Slowly though, I began to see a pattern in its movements. It would circle the area around a target several times, shoot wither skeletons at it, then charge straight at them, its side heads covering every blind spot, but when it was moving up, its heads were distracted as they searched for the next target, giving a slight window where it could be possible to get on top of it, allowing my bonus critical damage to help out. The only problem was how to get close enough that it would work, but avoid the flames covering him. Our best chance was to distract him somehow.

At that moment, Kira appeared, her armour changed, the leather was switched to a shirt, pants, and boots, with diamond parts covering a lot of it. Leather and diamond was used to create the helmet as well, giving the suit the general appearance of her previous one, but refined to the point where the suit was probably close to the speed of mine, but it probably had more protection then it. The sword itself was two handed, made out of iron, but with what looked like veins of diamond covering it.

The Hydra immediately charged at her, probably trying to get rid of something it viewed as a threat. When she swung the sword, I could see why. Milliseconds after the sword connected, the Poor Hydra was thrown into a sand mountain, changing it into glass, getting damaged, and then being hurt from fall damage as the glass broke. It didn't learn very well though, because it sped right past me on a beeline for her, giving me time to jump on top of it, and score a critical hit, now just so you can see how bad an idea that was, standard damage was 7 points, plus one from the swords ability is 8, enchantment damage was roughly 5 points, bringing it to 13, and then the critical hit, plus the critical bonus brings it to 22 points of damage, plus the knockback effect, allowing me to hit it with a second critical strike, it took 44 points of damage in roughly five seconds, while I took 2 points of damage from being thrown of it. Right after I got my bearings, it was thrown at me by Kira. Together we used knockback to shoot t back and forth, in essence giving it massive damage while stopping it from being able to counterattack. When it got to 15% health though, it underwent another change, because apparently it hasn't changed enough yet.

This time, the heads on its side moved to its shoulder, and became closer in appearance to shields. Its skeletal wings were shrouded in black, and took on the appearance of bat wings. Lastly, it flew straight up into the air, and let out all the black flames that were surrounding it, effectively changing our footing to glass, which I will say, is not usually a good thing, but now a) Alex was now able to fight without worrying about flames, and b) Liam's arrows could now hit it. Within short order, the Event Boss was destroyed, and each of us got a wither star, as well as enough experience to max out our levels. We each also got a Wither Gem, something nobody knew how to use. Unfortunately though, we would later learn that half of the players in the base that day were burnt to a crisp, and the reconstruction would take a full month. We all put the Wither Gems in a secret area, hoping that someday we would be able to find out what they do

-End of Chapter 13-


	14. Cursed Wings

Minecraft VR Chapter 14: Cursed Wings

The facility was still reeling for days after the Wither Hydra came around, and burned the entire thing to the ground, taking many people down before it was defeated With Kira's new diamond-leather hybrid armor working with my wolf suit. Since then, we had tried the Gem we had obtained with every item known, but nothing was working out for us. Alex was visibly upset, it was mostly the people from his zone that got killed off in the battle, and he probably figured it was his fault or something like that.

Thankfully he wasn't doing anything near as destructive as what I did, but he was still taking more risks then he used too, often leaving himself open in order to score a hit on an enemy, so he had to retreat a lot sooner than the others. Our building crew was rather busy as well, restoring and fortifying the entire base so if another fire based boss did show up, it wouldn't decimate us as badly as this one did.

Today was Alex's search day, so when he left, he was given more supplies then a regular trip, as well as a map, which was valued rather highly because of its cost, requiring four Iron bars for something that can't be used in battle. He also took the wave set, which he was getting famous for wearing, much to his distaste. Wave set was more like a tool for him now; he would use anything else if it was stronger. Liam and I were doing mob cleanup today, clearing the area of things that might not be very nice if they got inside borders. Kira was stuck on resource duties again, which she never seemed to mind even though it was about the most boring job in existence aside from building, which very few people liked to do.

Liam was on top form as always, so the mobs were cleared out before noon, giving us a lot of time to relax, and train against the passive mobs, which let us level a bit, but we ended up getting several Iron from veins we found nearby, before heading back to camp for a while. On our way, we caught up with Kira, who managed to get several days' worth of food, which was lucky, because I rarely got enough to feed five or six people on my shift, much less everyone living around here. None of us had seen Alex since he left, and he didn't return at night, which wasn't a major problem, he was probably on his way back now.

It was a problem though, when nobody had seen him for a week, and the three of us had to make up an excuse that he was going to a far distance to look for the Eye person, which seemed like it would be a good idea, but soon enough rumors were circulating that he had deserted in order to get all the Glory for himself, and left his group to fend for itself. The group was definitely in bad shape, so the three of us took several compasses, as well as enough paper to make maps out of all of them, and enough materials to make it look like a proper expedition. We left twenty-three days after he left the camp, and headed northwest, the direction he was supposed to be going before he disappeared.

We soon found a snow filled area where a lot of trees had been cleared away, but aside from that, there was nothing to suggest he had been there. Next up was an ocean, we figured he might have built a boat to cross for some reason, so we did the same. Soon after landing, it was a plains biome, which has got to be my favorite to run into, because the render distance is extremely high, giving us a lot larger of a view than usual, allowing us to see an area blocked off by a massive wooden wall, which we dismantled before entering. When we got there, the whole area was a giant mineshaft, which set off several warning bells in my head that this pretty much screamed trap, but hey, it's not like I haven't done stupid stuff before.

That being said though, when I heard someone whistling I was pretty surprised to say the least. I was even more surprised when I recognized it. The song was amazing grace, an old Christian song. And who would be whistling it but Alex. When he came near though I stopped, he wasn't wearing the same gear at all anymore.

It was all pitch-black, and was no longer made of pixels like regular armor, this was a recipe, but the blade was the most surprising. It was clearly made to be a two-handed blade, but its design incorporated several elements of my old black-stained blade to the degree I guessed this was the upgrade, and was glad we locked it up. The blade had a long, dark purple scar running down the middle, and the cross guard was shaped like a skull. The armor itself seemed to incorporate the same color scheme as the blade, but without the skull, even the helmet had his face mostly open, save his forehead. He had one last striking feature. A set of black wings, similar in design to an eagles, but twisted to the point where they looked like they barely worked anymore.

When he looked this way, his eyes gave the impression he had truly lost his mind.

"You, I had a feeling you would come down here to find me" he said pointing at me, and sounding rather bored about it

"Yeah well, I couldn't manage all that well without my right hand man, right?" I asked, acting like I didn't notice he had stolen from the sealed room.

"yes, well unfortunately I won't be going back to that useless place" he continued, his voice still perfectly even, as if he really didn't care what happened to the rest of us.

"so then, what happens to your squad now?" I asked, hoping to get him to come back through his loyalty

"Oh, they should be finishing off your little camp right now" he answered, keeping his voice so steady it was really starting to piss me off.

I asked one last question, simple enough that even he would be forced to answer "why"

"simple, you killed my group, Cheater, you aren't worthy to become a savior, so I'm going to do so in your stead, I already have what I need. He produced a flint and steel, then proceeded down some stairs to a obsidian frame, and lit it, entering the Nether. The room then exploded in TNT, destroying the portals, and leaving us no choice but to leave empty handed once again.

-End of Chapter 14-


	15. Decimation

Minecraft VR chapter 15: Decimation

After the explosion went off, the chain blast knocked out the portals, and destroyed the Obsidian somehow, so we couldn't catch up to him, forcing us to retreat after creating an area of wood so we could find the mineshaft later, and use its resources to keep our team going, provided there still was one of course. Liam took it pretty well, all events considering. I wish I could say I was doing that well myself, but I was pissed right off. Alex said his crew was taking out the rest of the camp, and the way he looked, he was really confident it was going to happen.

Right after construction was done, we made a beeline straight towards the base. Liam and I took out a lot of monsters on our way, but I'm not sure we even got the experience from them, we moved forward so fast. Soon enough, we saw the entrance gates, even though most of them were burnt to a crisp, same with all the rebuilt houses. Even the obsidian training hall was broken to a position I doubted we could manage to fix it to the state it was in with the paltry supplies we had available right now, since all our diamond goods were stolen.

"Damn," I cursed "these guys sure know how to destroy everything"

Liam could only nod, his arrows were looted, and he lost all his spare bows, as well as his enhanced armament recipe, a bow that would have been able to help us out majorly right now. All our recipes were gone, meaning our personal recipes were all that was left, aside from that place, maybe there was something there that could help us out. First though, we had to make sure Kira was okay, we could use all the help we could get if we were going to survive the trip, and then Beat this fake savior right out of the game.

When we got there, Kira was sleeping, but she was wearing her sword, so I bet she had at least heard of the recent events. We both went outside to my section of the farm, an area I hadn't been in a lot lately, and got the chickens harvest about as good as we could, as well as setting up a melon farm with most of the seeds I had found in the mine, since I figured I might as well have some good come from the recent problems. Eventually she came out, took one look at us, and attacked.

Her first shot was wild, and thus was easy to deflect. I had a feeling she wasn't exactly paying much attention to who she was fighting, so I got Liam to stand down and stepped into combat myself. It was pretty hard to avoid her attacks, but killing her for something like this wasn't a good idea, so I was careful to only block, and not attack, letting her wear her weapon down until it broke. At that time, I switched all my armor out, and equipped a sword that I had been saving, a blade with perfect knockback enhancements, and very low damage, and slashed once, she blocked it, but the knockback was still applied, forcing her back. When she looked up, she collapsed.

We carried her into the farmhouse and set her on the bed, then took turns on lookout while the other one took care of the farm business. Eventually she woke up, which let us properly talk, even though it was pretty clear she didn't trust us, she still wanted to help out, and beat the crap out of Alex, since she had been witness to the attacks, and seen his troops, aka the other survivors of the original player village. They had turned on us roughly the first night, taking out pretty much everyone they could find.

Once everyone's stories were settled, I told her about the Shrine of the Gods, a place Liam and I had constructed in the snow area to serve as a base in case something similar to this happened, and we needed to get the last of the recipes that I had gathered after the destruction. We gave ourselves as many supplies as we could, then left to get to the shrine in time to regroup before Alex emerged from the Nether, since nobody was naïve enough to expect him to stay out of commission long.

When we got there, we quickly sealed the entrance off with dirt, hoping the trees nearby would prevent aerial surveillance from finding us. The shrine was really far underground, and was set up like a maze so only Liam or I could properly navigate it. Thankfully there were no signs of anyone else around here, so I doubted anyone was following us, none of which made me feel any better about being sealed in an area with Alex on the loose.

We finally got into the Antechamber, a giant hole with the ground covered in white and blue wool, and one spot one the wall covered by the same. I opened the cave entrance, and then sealed it behind me, just in case someone was stalking us. I sat outside the room of Prayer with Kira, and told Liam to go inside it. Almost immediately after that I heard someone whistling amazing grace, just like last time. We both switched to full combat gear and went out into the antechamber. It was on fire, and several of our old trainees were by the entrance, clothed in some sort of dark iron armor, other than that, nothing remarkable.

To continue the predictability of it all, these idiots decided to attack me, which was a really bad idea, seeing as none of them was ever close to even landing one hit on me, and they hadn't improved all that much, and were still scattered. Soon more came in though, and I had to repeat the process while they regrouped. They were getting rather annoying though, and they were causing a brawl in a proper holy place, which really pissed me off. I called my wolves in to tear them to shreds while Kira and I took out the rest of them.

Second that was done, the same melody filled the air, and He walked in. Same dark armor, same bored face, but his sword had an odd cross-guard this time, it looked like it had a block enchantment applied, because for whatever reason, he wasn't insanely powerful before.

This time he didn't waste any time with words either, and charged straight at me. My blade did block it, but the damage was still more than I would have liked it to be. My strike was a direct hit, but he didn't seem to mind it at all. His next attack was a miss too, but black flames reared out of his blade, nearly burning me, and black flames don't go out, meaning if I got hit, I was probably dead. Kira was faring about as well, his sideswipes were enough to keep her busy, showing just how out-classed we were right now.

This back and forth went on for a while, but soon enough Liam appeared in the armor only able to be gained in a Holy place-the Holy Disaster armour. The helmet was grey, with gold highlights giving the helmet a very regal look, while still not stopping any of his sight. The armor itself was similar to his previous armor, but again with the grey and gold scheme, and a quiver built in to it, adorned in a faint leaf print etched in white in the gold. The leg armor was again a redesign, but his bow was the major change, it was black, with golden vines running both up and down, with a rest I bet was made from flint and diamond.

The first shot he fired burst into pure blue flames, and struck Alex, forcing him into the air and lighting him on fire, which caused a slight flicker of pain, the first sliver of emotion he had shown since he left. He left then, his wings carrying him too fast for any of us to pursue. We restored the area as best we could, then left back for home, this trip had been exhausting, and we were all ready for a nice long sleep.


	16. Retreat

Minecraft VR Chapter 16: retreat

Alex was a lot more wary of our group nowadays, just as we were of him. He knew the armor Liam possessed had the power to be a major threat to him. Lately however, we had been able to see him moving around the area, probably to make sure the area wasn't being used easily by us. Annoyingly, it was working quite well, seeing as his flight was a pain to Kira and I. His sword likewise, would take out Liam's ranged based Holy Disaster Armor easily if he got close enough with the black flames he had learned to wield annoyingly well.

After several days of this, we decided our only option left was to retreat underground, and make sure he wouldn't be able to find us anywhere. The only problem then, was what was to be taken with us when we retreated from the world. Each of us worked on the base every night, and sealed it up right after, to prevent Alex from using it, since he seemed to log out at the same time every night, it was possible to get in and out rather easily, even though we still had patrols to deal with. Soon enough, it was tunneled out, and a Underground Wheat farm was set up that let us have enough food to survive. Each of us had a rather small 5 by 5 room, with walls 2 blocks high. We also went around and gathered two chests worth of supplies from the various places we had found above ground throughout the time we had spent there.

When Kira got to her Farm, she killed every Chicken there, and collected all the Wheat, as well as destroying the crops still standing. Last was the part I knew she really didn't want to do. She set the whole farm on fire, and walked away from everything she had worked so hard to get done. I did the same thing with the Complex we had spent many months to develop, as well as our two supply bases, which really sucked, seeing as my library burned down too, sealing off enchanting for what was likely going to be a pretty long time.

Once all that was done, we went underground, knowing full well we were likely to never go to the surface until Alex was destroyed, a fact which only hurt us more. When we got to the underground version of the Residential area, Kira went into her bunker and immediately broke down. I couldn't much blame her either, seeing as I was just barely able to stomach the thought we weren't able to see the sun for a while. I was even set up by my mom in the real world so I was able to stay here until the game was done. Even Liam was badly shaken, down here the only way he could replenish his arrows was to fight, and fighting underground has a bunch of risks nobody really wanted to take. Annoyingly though, our retreat meant underground fighting was pretty much the only way we would ever be able to stand a chance against someone like Alex.

Fences were quickly set up to stop hostiles from breaking into the fort, seeing as nobody wanted to see a creeper right when they woke up. The farm was rather large, but seeing as fighting became something of a sport after a while, the extra bread was very helpful, and the supplies we brought with us meant we soon had enormous stacks of iron, giving us all ample parts to remake any gear we needed before the day's events. We also sealed the entrance to the bunkers to hopefully prevent Alex from waltzing in here like he seems to be able to do rather easily as of late.

We soon set up a rotation that let a team of two people leave every day to go to the caves, while the other stayed behind to beat the living crap out of Alex if he happened to show up in here. Because of this, our iron stocks grew to such a high amount, we stripped the entire mine of the stuff, and still barely found enough diamonds to keep our weapons and armor sharp.

Nights were a pain though. We weren't able to see the stars, and Kira was still having several problems with the fact that we couldn't go topside to get chickens to bring down here. Liam himself was getting pretty gloomy, arrows of skeletons were the only way he could keep his weapon useful, and with a lowered arrow count, he had to take care to maximize damage every shot. Personally, I got pretty close to lost several times a day, which wasn't all that funny considering all the crap going on lately.

Clearing the place out was a pain too, Cobblestone was piling up like crazy, and mob damage to the area was wasting a lot of our time that I would rather have spent doing other things. Nonetheless, eventually all the building was done and we could focus on expanding outward, and try to find Alex's base for our counterstrike against the man who was once our friend. My main problem for now though, wasn't Alex, but surviving a game that seemed set to put every obstacle possible against us. Since the beginning of the Test, the creator seems to have done nothing but find ways to set the entire world against us, which definitely isn't fun.

My wolves too, were suffering down here, as the meat they were used to was being replaced by rotten meat, which probably tastes like garbage to them just like too us. VR was an incredible game, but now it seems like it isn't much of a game, so much as a way for the creator to torture us. Such was my thoughts as I drifted off to sleep day 32 of our underground retreat

-End of Chapter 16-


	17. Overpower

Minecraft VR Chapter 17: Overpower

It was day 50 of our retreat into the underground world when we started to properly expand our area to try to find diamonds, as well as a way to counter Alex's Legion, whose marches we could sometimes hear coming from the surface area. Kira was still really stressed out about the whole underground thing. I was getting the Idea she didn't much like enclosed spaces, and an underground area definitely fit the bill for an enclosed area.

So that's how the first three player underground mission was finally started. The three of us were to search underground for Alex's base, as well as a way to counter the black flames he could wield so well. The target zone this time was where we first found him after his defection. The area we called the infinite mines may hold secrets to where he went to, and better yet, why he betrayed us all.

The entire trek was way too long for us to just randomly go in, and it had several risks we didn't want to run into. First off, we wanted to avoid a fight with Alex if we could; Secondly, Lava wasn't exactly a good thing to run into right now. And finally, we were trying to avoid Creepers, seeing as their enclosed advantage was pretty good in enclosed areas, say for example a cave system. Those three things were on top of armor maintenance, and our limited food supply. Liam also said he would like to avoid using more than 25% of his arrow stock for something as simple as a stealth mission.

A corridor was our method of choice, it was quick, and if it lead nowhere, easy to repair. We kept the corridor going for quite a while, until we came to a tower that seemed to stretch from the floor of the world all the way to the top of the world. My major question was how we hadn't managed to see the tower a long time ago. Alex might be in it too though, so we snuck in it carefully. The entire area was lightened, preventing any Mobs from spawning. The sound of a blade clashing with something was clearly audible above us though, so we were forced to continue up the tower. The tower itself was huge though, and when we got near the top, a rather strong looking character was battling a zombie, using the flat edge of the blade to guard all its attacks, then moving forwards. When he moved forwards though, he moved his blade upwards, forcing a collision that shot the Zombie into the air. His sword then followed through with a upwards thrust, knocking it so far into the air that when it fell down, its fall damage caused it to die, and its rewards to spill out right in front of the guy, who took the experience and Iron sword, and sent the rest of it falling.

He looked straight at us. "Names Steve, what're you intruders doing, sneaking around a guy's home like this?"

Liam stepped forward "sorry sir, but we've been looking for a guy in a black set of armor with busted up wings, we guessed he might be in a place like this."

"What for?" the man replied, slightly curious now, but obviously still wary of us

"He killed about a full Company of players while the three of us were gone" I replied

"and you fools honestly planned to take him on?" he asked, evidently expecting we were weak or something.

He then charged towards me, sword held in a regular old offensive stance. I sidestepped his blade and slashed, only to be met with his blade, kept in the guard position. He moved upwards, and I was sent flying through the air from the enormous amount of knockback he generated. He then sat down.

"unless you kiddos learn how to do something like that, there's not a single chance for you to beat someone with that high of a killer instinct."

This time it was Kira who spoke up "so then, how do we learn something like that? I'm pretty sure Minecraft doesn't have a skill system, so learning something like this isn't exactly easy."

He looked at her "miss, that technique was about as simple as it gets, all I did was release my guard upwards instead of sideways, it was the sheer strength difference between us that did the trick"

I cut in " but isn't the player weight locked in at the same value"

"no" he replied " your player weight is equivalent to your real-world weight, so for someone like you, who probably doesn't log out, your deteriorating body size equates to you being an easy target for anything that uses a weight check"

We were all stunned, this meant that other parameters were also probably carried over from our real bodies, so our staying here all the time might actually be ruining our chances to win. At that moment, I realized why Alex was always logging out, and why he was always so much ahead of us. He had already known about this, probably for a while, and judging from the rest of our groups faces, they had figured out the same thing.

We thanked the guy, and left, we were all going to have to do some major planning, and probably explain a lot to our various families about why we couldn't stay in VR until we beat it. I got the first switch back to my body, since I had been gone the longest. Thankfully, everyone accepted what was happening. I had the feeling the hospital lady was mad though, she was paid by the hour for taking care of my body, and it just walked out on her.

When I got home, I began to exercise, hoping to restore my body to a stage where it could take advantage of the weight system, and not get taken out by another Overpower technique. When it was time to head back into the game, I allowed the full-VR function, replacing my Username with my first name, and giving my Avatar an appearance that looked like me. Unfortunately, right now it meant that my Avatar was a lot bonier then I would like.

When I came to in the VR world, I found that the decreased Body size meant the Wolf armor didn't fit properly, and the only thing that did was leather. My now black hair was short, like reality. The bones gave the suit the general look of someone who was dying; as opposed to the earlier look of a General or something. I stepped into the Cave and let my eyes adjust to the dark render settings, as opposed to the Light in my room. It was a new start in VR, and I was sure not prepared right now for much

-End of Chapter 17-


	18. Degeneration

Minecraft VR chapter 18: degeneration

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, a lot of the Shadows disappeared, Liam was the only one in sight. He said Kira had already left back to the real world, and then commented on how the lack of muscle on my body made me look a lot more like the legion members of Alex's we had seen so far then anything. He said it like a joke, but it sure didn't feel like one to me. The degeneration was really bad, and there wasn't much I could do.

I spent an awful long time bored, since now the skeletons weight values were completely over mine, which meant I had a damage reduction applied and the lack of wearable armor really bummed me out. The fact my health bar was set at three hearts now felt like a personal insult as well. Liam tried to laugh it off, saying that his would probably be worse, but his face showed he was just as worried about what his body was like now, so it didn't really convince me of anything. The time was definitely ticking, and we needed to increase our parameters quickly enough that we could learn how to use the strength system to our advantage.

Soon enough, Kira logged back on, and Liam left, saying that he had stalled long enough, and it was his time to figure out what to do with his body. Kira hadn't degenerated all that much, maybe she was a bit bonier then before, but I had a feeling she hadn't gone to full VR mode, since there was no way I had lost that much and she managed to barely lose anything. She didn't joke nearly as much as Liam, probably because she knew exactly how bad it was seeing yourself shriveled, or maybe she could notice people's emotions better than Liam, I wasn't sure, and I had a feeling it would be a bad Idea to ask her about it.

She had switched to one of her old sets though, which gave me a fairly good indication that she was hiding something, even before I noticed she was shaking a bit too much. I wanted to help her out here, but again, my mind was blank on how. Thankfully Liam appeared before I overthought things. He wasn't in any better shape than me unfortunately, and so switched back to Leather armor. His skin was fairly sunken in, and he was leaning rather heavily to one side, something I bet he picked up from the real world from when he was tired, meaning he was in full VR mode.

We spent the rest of the day checking the farm, and various other things that wouldn't require much effort, seeing as anything extra might cause some sort of abnormal status to be given to us, and that would likely mean death for us right now. We went back to see the old man, but he was gone, and his tower was covered in Lava, probably an attack, since the old guy didn't seem like the kind of person who would make a rookie mistake like mining upwards.

This wasn't exactly the sign we were all looking for, it meant we were running out of time, and we needed all that we could get. When I logged out for the night, Kira said she was planning to stay behind, but that she would be expecting me to cover for her in the morning, so she could sleep. I didn't have much chance to answer though before I left.

When I got back home, I looked online for a running program, I ended up taking a pretty brutal course, but I had heard good things about it around, and it was obvious I would need every bit of help possible. When I got there, the guy in charge asked why I was stupid enough to start something like this after years of sitting around. When I explained the circumstances though, he told me to drop this course, and come by after hours for some major training. When I got there, he had special shoes ready for me. He said they were weighted, which would make it harder to move. He wasn't kidding either, the first few days it was all I could do to walk with the things, and I still had to stop for breaks.

When I logged on though, Kira was still online, turns out I had been gone from VR a bit too long, and she and Liam had been trying to keep up the pace, but the degeneration meant they were really hard pressed. I told her about the training I was doing to help with my speed, and she said she had a place like that where she was at, so if she could, she would give it a chance there. She logged off after that, and Liam was on right after.

He said he had already got the same idea as I had, but instead of running, he had gone for archery, something he was only allowed to do because his family figured if he practiced in the real world, he would be better off in this world, and as such, could clear the game faster. I'm betting it was because of the schoolwork though, seeing as a lot of teachers didn't seem to consider the VR crisis as all that important, and said that even a half hour on that game should be enough. As such, we were all expected to catch up on roughly a full month of schoolwork, as well as our summer assignments.

Alex was starting to increase his grip above ground though, so I was finding myself in the Gym more often then I probably should have been, and soon enough was capable of an extremely light jog with the weights on. He joked that soon enough he might have to introduce me to someone else who did something just as dumb as me, but he wanted to make sure we were both capable of running unsupervised before then. That confused me a bit, who aside from our group knew about the weight system, and had just recently logged out?

Liam was soon capable of using at least a basic bow with good accuracy, but none of us were in any shape to equip our highest level gear yet. My arms were still in no shape either; I would have to ask the coach what I could do to get them up to an even better degree then when I started VR. Kira said her coach in the real world was acting rather strange too though, mumbling about idiotic video game players, which she found weird, as people normally didn't talk about one person using the word players. Who were the two players that were mentioned, and were they on the same server as us?


	19. Training

Minecraft VR chapter 19: training

Ever since we learned about the weight system in place in VR, we had all been taking part in training exercises in the real world as well as continuing battle training in VR. After a while, Kira finally entered full VR state, which didn't change a lot about her appearance, but hey, at least we all knew what each other looked like in the real world, at least while we were all similar in appearance to dead people that is. Alex wasn't active all that much though, I bet he figured out that we found out about the weight system by now.

Coach said that I was getting better, but it would be awhile before I could do anything similar to the overpower techniques the old guy showed off. Kira said her Coach said the same thing, except her coach sounded like he was about ten years older than mine. When we were discussing this once during Liam's time in the real world we both wondered who the two people were that were being mentioned, as well as if Alex knew one of the two, since that would really cause problems for us. On the other side though, they could be on a different server, which would give us a clue on how the others were doing getting to their end game, we could definitely use the help.

When it was me and Liam, we mostly talked about how we could adapt the weight system for his armor, since a bow wasn't exactly something the system was a major difference in, aside from the health points we managed to recover. My hp was at 10 points, which wasn't all that much improved, his was at 9 points though, so I guessed he wasn't pushing himself quite as hard as I was. I was starting to wonder why Alex hadn't attacked yet though, seeing as none of us was yet at any ability to go against him if he decided he really wanted us gone.

Our best chance then was to train in VR against each other using wooden swords, and see exactly how the system could be used for us. By doing this, we found out several rules about the system

It only activates when weapons or armor collide

It has very little effect on ranged weapons

Mobility in reality directly effects knockback range

Damage isn't increased by the system, unless the players weights differ by about 20 kg

From those, we were able to find out that for right now, we all needed to boost our ranged capabilities by a lot in order to stay away from Alex, or train to the point that our weights very closely matched his, to prevent the extra damage dealt to us.

When we told Kira about the rules we had found out, she added another rule

The effect ranged weapons is applied with is based on the same system as knockback for melee weapons.

The entire system followed those five rules, so we all needed to train slightly differently than we had been doing before in order to maximize our chosen battle style. Liam had to find a way to increase his body's mobility in the joints for his system, as well as his current archery training. Kira enrolled in normal track as well as the advanced version we had been doing with our respective coaches. Personally, I was going for a mix of those two programs, joint exercises as well as the advanced track. When I asked coach how I could fit that in I'm pretty sure he thought I was insane, but we ended up getting it worked out, although with these schedules the VR world was left alone several times a day outside of school, which was pretty worrying.

Soon enough I was capable of running at a decent speed, 15km per hour with the weights, even though I was still exhausted when I got home, a least I was getting better. Coach said he might have his regulars do this kind of stuff because of the results we were getting, I told him to wait a bit longer, since we had yet to see just how much of a difference the weights could do in the long run.

Day 63 since we learned about the system. It's been about two months since we learned of the system. Halloween passed by without any special boss or anything showing up, which was probably a good thing. Coach decided I would be introduced to the rest of the class as a newbie, but I had to keep the weights on for another month. A lot of them were curious, after all, who runs at 17 km per hour normally and needs a break, especially in a team the coach was teaching. The rest of them hit 25 easy; some seemed to be going thirty. The only problem was that thirty was starting to look a lot slower than it should have when they were going almost double my speed.

The one thing all these guys noticed though, was how easy I made the warm ups look. It was almost funny, these guys could run pretty good, but give them a hundred push ups and make them clasp their hands together behind their back, and you get treated as a murderer. It was rather funny though, because none of these guys knew that I had in effect, killed people before, so their attempts at dirty looks didn't bug me at all, even though I pretended they did.

Back in VR though, the rest of the group was doing pretty well in their own ways. Kira said her coach was starting to get a little nicer, but she still doubted it was the same guy. Liam was saying his aim was really improving, and he had a suspicion the weight system was more like an advanced body system. He explained it by saying that it tracks a lot more of your body than expected, probably by means of a modified X-ray, giving it a very accurate view of what your body can do. Those things are turned into precise parameters in-game, for example, increasing his accuracy to simulate the improved joint movement he was getting. It sounded complex, but in reality it was a simple rule. Train your body for VR the exact same way you would in Real life.

Soon enough, the month coach had given me had ended. He said that he would have the other person ready in a week, so I should come back then to check the advantage the weights gave me over the others. When I told Kira that, she was a bit on edge, but hey, she had a deal with her coach the same day, so we didn't exactly have a lot of time to talk before then. Liam said he was probably going to do something then too, but he wouldn't say what was going on. So much for trusting each other, I guess.


	20. ABS unleashed

Minecraft VR Chapter 20.1 Draft: ABS unleashed

So then, this was it. Today we would let the weights drop in training for the first time. When I got there, Coach told me to get into a standard set of runners clothing, or something like that. I'm starting to think game talk has leaked into my speech in real life or something like that. The stuff was so light, I had to double check to make sure it was actually on at least once. The Coach asked if I was okay, I said I was fine, but this stuff is a lot lighter than what I was used to. He replied with something along the lines of armor will do that to a guy.

He told me to start off now, and make sure I could handle moving fast in an enclosed space without the stuff weighing me down. That was probably a good idea too, since the first time I turned I nearly hit a wall before I managed to make the necessary turn to continue the lap. I started the turn a lot sooner the next time, and got around without much difficulty, even though I did trip once. I think he might have to explain how a skid mark was on the gym floor though. I managed the rest of the special class without any major incident, and then took a half hour break before the group practice started. Coach said that the other person would be in the group then, so I would have to avoid making a scene if I noticed who it was that was in the same advanced program as me.

The person was hanging back a fair bit, and had slight red marks on her hands, probably from the same things coach made me use, even though I had stopped paying any attention to my marks a while ago, and the others at the club stopped mentioning them about three weeks ago. I had a weird feeling though, like I should know this person. We started the basic warm ups, and the new person was doing pretty well, I was still on top, but I had a feeling it was only because of the joint training of Coaches I had been doing. Then came the main event, the race. 20 laps around, first doesn't have to worry about one on one races. This one was one I had other stakes on though, I wanted to find out who the new girl was, even though my best bet at it was probably a stupid idea. Almost the same time the coach let us go, the others accelerated to max, the new person included. I kept the pace going at around 20 km per hour for the first three laps, and let the people who liked to use up all their energy at the start lose a lot of speed, and drop to the 15-20 range. Then I went at my best, just to see how well it worked out. 32km per hour for 6 full laps. At the end of that, I slowed down to 25, but the advantage was there. The only one still going was the new girl, who managed to keep up with me almost the entire time.

At the end though, I ended up winning, and not taking my chance. The idiots at the club though, had other ideas, and tried to get the girl to admit to using steroids or something. She told them to get lost, and one of them decided he was going to try one of his daddy's fighting techniques. I said tried for a reason there, it worked about as well as him trying to keep up with us earlier. She basically tripped him, and let his fist carry him straight into the ground. Idiot number two decided he was going to try a grab attack this time. And let's just sum up what happened by saying that worked even worse than number ones stupid move.

It was number three that convinced me I was right though, he decided he would try to sweep her legs out. She jumped right on his leg at the end of the sweep, and punched him so hard in the face he was out cold. It was Kira who was the other special trainee here. Coach called us in, saying he needed to write down a report, and discuss punishment. When he got there, he was surprisingly calm. Then he removed his training gear. Let me tell you, I didn't expect his training gear to be his entire beer belly, and about 50% of his arm size. I also didn't expect a lot of his head to be a mask, weighted with the same stuff I had used during training. Our coach was the old man from in VR, turns out he did manage to get out after all.

He explained Alex had tried very hard to kill him, but since Coach's job according to himself was to hold the secrets of the weight system, he didn't stay online any more than he had to do. He also explained that the 8 worlds in VR were built to run on an entire country, and our initial spawns were set based off location in the real world. That meant that Kira lived in roughly a 1 km radius from where I do, and Alex probably lived within 2-3 km of my place. Meaning, he said, Alex would be capable of attacks in the real world if he wanted, but VR was more likely. He said that we shouldn't worry about the earlier incident with the idiots who attacked Kira, the rest of the class didn't notice anything but three guys who tripped, and three guys who got sent to the hospital is usually because of a collision, and that was what was being put in the reports.

We left the gym, and split up as we went home, VR would be real fun now that we knew our strength was even higher than before. I removed the last of the restrictions on my account, replacing the name Player with my real name Edward, and updating my avatar with the red marks from the training. Lastly I changed into a black color base, as a reminder of the previous armor I had worn. Minecraft VR was going into the second stage now, and there was no way I was going to hold anything back.

Kira came out after a while, and said it was going to be weird calling me by my real name now. I said either was fine, I had gotten used to being called Player, and anything was better than the Cheater name Alex and his Legion had given me, as well as many people before them. I got my wolf set out of the Treasure Chest in my room, and equipped it.

The set changed design a lot from the last time though. The armor was now black, with golden trim. The shoulder pads warped together and the cape flowed out from behind it. The gauntlets had small gold claws right before the first joint of each finger. The red parts on the suit were replaced by blue, and the mask had a covering I could switch on and off, purely for aesthetic purposes though. Kira told me t would be a better idea to keep the mask off while I wasn't in combat, I had the feeling she thought it was a little creepy. The sword itself wasn't changed though, so I guess it wasn't affected by the swap.

Kira's set had changed a bit as well. It was a lot lighter than before, looking similar to her Iron one then the diamond one. It had a diamond trim though, and with the addition of a red cape she looked a lot more like a knight then Alex had ever managed to do. Her sword was the most major change though, switching from a rather unimpressive blade to a rapier, its length the highest I had ever seen in VR.

"Looks like our skills weren't the only things that got a redesign I said"

Kira nodded "yeah, but let's test these things out before we celebrate, okay?"

I nodded, we now had a way to fight back, and man, was it looking amazing

-End of Chapter 20-


	21. Acceleration

Minecraft VR Chapter 21: Acceleration

Kira and I left the underground base, and set out for the same path we had used previously to get to Coach's old House, he said he was going to meet up with us there once he got online to work on our counter attack plan on Alex and his Crew. The entire area was utterly decimated, and Coach stood at the Center. He said he wanted to guarantee he had nowhere left to go in this world, so he could focus on helping us go all the way to the last boss. First though, we needed a way to stop the players that were against us.

Coach asked if we had anywhere nearby he could stay at for a while, he wasn't anyone from the above ground Center, so we figured it Couldn't be that bad of an Idea. Plus, we did need a fourth ember to fill up the Empty space after Alex left the group. Coach was given pretty much the exact same crap as the rest of us, and he brought his own Recipe parts as well, so our lack wasn't really a problem. Coach was wearing armor that was a lot heavier than the rest of ours, and was clearly using Diamond to weigh it down, functioning to reduce knockback, as well as the increased Armor it gave. His Back Item was a shield, but he couldn't take it off, which was a bit annoying. He showed us the set name, and I was surprised to see it had the sae name as Kira's set. So we now had rule number seven figured out 7. The armor that Full VR gives using the ABS system changes shape depending on how you train in real life.

We set off first to test the Combat abilities of our changed sets. When I turned the Corner of a mine zone, a Zombie room appeared. I aimed the blade at one instinctively, and a wolf rocketed from my house straight into it, instantly destroying it. Then I Jumped in, and spun the blade around my body, knocking the horde back into the walls, as well as the sharpness bonus damage. Kira slashed through each zombie, a faint flame igniting the wounds that were opened, preventing them from closing properly. Hers gained the sharpness enchantment as well with the change. Coach went in with a standard looking blade, except for the usual non pixelated look all recipe parts share. His blade was literally cutting everything in half; I swear he had a level six sharpness value or something like that.

After that, we all went back to the base to eat. Kira said that with this, we should be able to survive above ground now, but we should keep our underground base ready in case we decided it was too dangerous an idea. I knew why she said it of course; she still was having problems with underground life. I was kind of feeling sorry for her having to do this all because of Alex, so I said we could try it, but the second we are in danger, we are going to return to the base. She thanked me as we left, but I was a bit busy with my supplies, so I basically mumbled an answer, which she didn't seem all that happy about.

When we emerged though, trouble was already around, and it was in the form of a bunch of Alex's soldiers. They must have heard about the ABS system too, because they all had wing like parts, with varying degrees of success. Liam came up behind us. "jeez, we finally get out of there and now this, today sure isn't my favorite". His armor was changed as well. The grey portions on it had changed to green, and a lot of the vine designs were a lot more obvious now. The armor incorporated a sword sheath as well, which held a huge sword that he would have to use two hands to hold.

He looked at coach. "Hey old man, guess you're still around then."

Coach just pointed at the Soldiers "one thing at a time kid, I hope you know how to use that weapon."

The soldiers advanced, a lot of them shooting arrows at me, like I had a shoot me sign or something attached. The arrows were going really slowly though, so I had more than enough time to dodge all of them. Kira wasn't letting the ground soldiers get close, and was using the armors speed to move behind them, and usually scoring a couple of hits as she moved. Liam was taking on the fliers with Coach, Liam would take the enemies as they were far away, and Coach cleared up the few that survived. Liam was moving a lot faster than the guys he was fighting, pretty much barely aiming, and still getting them in the head every time, then following up with an arrow to each wing that usually caused fire damage to demolish them.

After that, we returned to the ruined place we had once called home. Kira said she was taking over the old Kitchen building as her house, nobody questioned her choice, we just said we needed the front area to be accessible for us to use, she agreed to that rather easily. Liam said he was going to rebuild the Hotel, Coach said he would deal with whatever was left. I took the remains of my building. I had kept a lot of supplies hidden here even Alex didn't know about. We quickly patched up the area we had burned, but ended up using a lot of trees in the process.

Then morning came, and with it, the treat Alex posed to us. Liam finally came up with a way to negate the flames, but even so, the non-ending bit meant we would have to finish any fight quickly and put out the blaze. The rest of the day was spent fighting off soldiers. I was getting annoyed though, the endless supply of these things was causing problems, and I wasn't sure anymore how many people had lost all VR services because of us. Liam suggested once that when we write up our reports, we put in several choice words about where our feet would go if we saw him in reality, that sounded pretty good, and I told Liam so. Kira was trying to find chickens, Coach thought it was a bad idea, but I told him she needed this right now. I still remembered when we first met; she had been tending her farm, so I thought maybe this was a kind of stress relief for her.

She returned around the time we needed to log off to head to the Gym, so Coach, Kira and I all logged off around the same time. The guys who tried to beat her up were around this time too, and had the brilliant idea of trying to take me down. I wasn't looking for a fight today though, I knew by now that the Fight I was going to get into with Alex would be draining enough. Target number one moved in slowly, but he seemed to be running. Coach stood there watching, like this was some really interesting movie he wanted to watch. I bowed down, allowing his back to catch on mine, and straightened up, causing him to lose his balance. I pushed the palm of my hand right where his lungs were, winding him, and forcing him into the ground. Number two tried to kick me from behind. I caught his foot and used it to flip him on his back. The third one let out a small cry before he crumpled, behind him was Kira. When the guys from the hospital showed up, the coach told them the same guys were trying to do something even crazier than the last time, and were going to be banned from the place for the safety of everyone.

That Saturday was the time. At real time 2:00 PM, I logged in to VR. When I got there, Liam, Kira, and Coach were already assembled. I opened the Wolf cage, with the ability I had now, It didn't matter where they went, They would come at my call. Kira set her knight set, and it shined brighter than ever. Liam had his Holy disaster Armor on, and was carrying his bow, but had one hand on his bow. Coach had his version of Kira's set on as well, nicknamed the Heavy Knight Gear. We set off south, the direction of the Tower Alex called his home now.

-End of Chapter 21-

Well, this is the version of the Chapter I made for if nobody did the contest, there will be more branching sections eventually.


	22. Assault

Minecraft VR Chapter 22: Assault

We had finally returned to our above ground base, but it still wasn't safe. Alex could return at any moment for an Ambush. Knowing this, we headed south, towards the mineshaft we originally found him at. We all were wearing our highest enchanted gear, and I had my full pack with me today. Because the pack was coming though, we also brought a massive amount of food to feed the four of us, as well as the pack. We passed by a massive tower that had been built in our absence. We figured Alex probably already knew we were out of the base, so we had fun introducing his area to the wonders of TNT.

It turned out he had secret areas in the tower as living quarters too though, so quite a few people were blown up by the explosion. Kira and I cringed at that, and Liam ran outside, and fired an arrow at a dam in frustration. Coach was the only one unfazed by the deaths, probably because he considered the people serving under Alex as his personal enemies. It turns out that idea wasn't very good for relieving the groups stress after all. The storage room there was pretty much empty of items we could use as well, rendering the trip a complete waste. We set what remained of it on fire, and continued on our way.

We eventually had to stop and set up camp. We used stone this time, nobody wanted to give Alex the chance to Burn the camp down while we were around after all, and Stone works a lot better than wood for TNT, and he was probably pissed about the whole tower thing from earlier, I doubted he would accept the deaths as an accident, and if he was wearing that nasty armor I could guarantee it wouldn't work out.

Then morning came, and I got up first. We all had decided that for this assignment, logging out was not an option, so I took out a flute I had found on the armor a while ago. It turns out the armor has a weird assist feature for this instrument, because there was no way I could play it normally. When I stopped playing, Kira and Liam were out of their respective tents, and my wolf packs size had almost doubled, I put the flute away, and we dismantled the site before leaving. It wasn't all that long before we found what we were looking for though, A Non-descript house with the door on the top and no ladder.

What came next was annoying in the extreme though; a full battalion of Alex's soldiers, who happened to see us on a patrol. They didn't stop for answers either, they just attacked us. I didn't want to use my wolves though, so I had to try to end this fast. Kira looked at me, and I nodded, we needed to capture one to find out where the base was at.

The battle wasn't really one though, none of these guys had any clue about the ABS system, so we kept doing major damage with increased knockback, and the overpower attack Coach showed us when we first met him. Coach had a slightly different way of doing things though. He got out his blade, and was switching it between normal state when he brought it up, and the heavier ABS mode for the downwards slash. Liam sheathed his bow, and took out the sword. One hit knocked one of the people out, and then we had our captive, so we finished taking out the trash.

Then I heard a noise, it was the exact same song Alex uses every time he showed up. We all looked upwards, and seen a black comet streak towards the ground. We all jumped backwards, instinctively raising our blades to attempt to guard from the explosion that was about to occur. When Alex hit, the ground basically shattered, like a charged creeper had a double explosion radius or something. We were all blown back, and the trees in the area were instantly dead. We looked below us, the ground was littered with blocks, and all of us now had a full inventory.

Alex had mastered ABS as well by the looks of it. The armor gained of detail, primarily changing to give it the appearance of spirit armor and knight armor, all dyed black, with red highlights that made it look like the armor itself was bleeding. The sword was dark as ever, and the wings were righted, meaning he had likely been in the real world at least half the time we were, as coach said gaining body parts in VR took a lot of specialized training in the real world. His eyes were still blank as ever, and the lack of motion in his body made it look like he was dead, ignoring the bit where he obviously wasn't.

"You again, I heard you got rid of my base" Alex said, noticing us for the first time, his voice just as even as it was the last time

"Yeah, it was a piece of junk, it didn't have any TNT resistance" I countered, hoping insulting his creations would cause him to show some sign of emotion

"Yes, well the sole purpose it served was to tell me if you three were around, but I will admit I was hoping that old man had died for good this time" he responded, his voice still perfectly calm

"Yeah, sorry kiddo, but just ask these two" Coach answered Alex's insult "I don't go down easily"

Alex turned to me "so then, I take it you and Kira live in the same area, then, well, that means once I end you here, I can finally kill you all in the real world as well." His voice was still calm, as if he considered killing us equivalent to tying his shoes or something simple like that.

That sentence scared me. The guy standing in front of me was not only insane, but likely willing to kill. I turned to Kira again, and we both nodded, we would be logging out straight after, and going to the gym to fight Alex in reality as well. Coach looked at us "well then, all the annoying formalities are out of the way, let's get rid of the trash you two."

"the only trash being thrown out here is you four I'm afraid" Alex responded, his voice so even it was impossible to tell what h was thinking.

He stabbed his sword in the ground, and three copies of him emerged, each with a full set of armor and health, although all four swords were now downgraded to the form I had last seen. Kira took out the rapier, its thin flames visible in the moonlight. Coach took out his sword, and engaged its ABS mode. Liam got out his sword, its blue flames illuminating the night. I took out the wolf blade, and switched all my armor to ABS mode. We each ran to one edge of the area we were at, and faced our respective enemies.

I aimed my blade at one, and all the wolves I had gained with the Flute, as well as the ones I had taken time to train, charged at him from all directions. He flew up in the air, avoiding most of the claws, but his wings were damaged, so he was only capable of remaining in the air a short time. He landed back down, and the wolves returned to finish their assault. My opponent moved slightly each time, forcing the wolves to hit each other. Eventually one died, and a soft light flew into my blade, lighting a small flame, only noticeable because I had memorized my blades design.

" it looks like all your wolves were only good for a sideshow after all, and the lights are doing nothing for you" Alex spoke up, his voice showing a hint of emotion at last, although amusement was not one I wanted to hear right now. That did mean though, the one I was fighting was probably the real Alex. A second light flew into my blade.

Alex attacked, the dark blade reaching for my body, but it couldn't hit me unless Alex managed to score a hit. My wolves were still busy fighting each other, and a third one died, releasing a third light, which increased my blades flames slightly. My armor whitened a small bit too, but the blue was still there. Alex was moving too fast for me to worry about it much though. The fourth light entered my blade.

-End of Chapter 22-


	23. Confrontation part 1

Minecraft VR Chapter 23: Confrontation part 1

The clash between the four of us and Alex continued on, but I didn't have time to check on the others, I was having problems enough on my own. My wolves were killing each other off, and generating a light that seems to give a flame effect. This effect stockpiles for each death, so I had to hold him off until then. That was not going to be easy though. He moved in for an attack on me, and I sidestepped, bringing my blade up, and hitting his blade, stopping the attack.

As I did that though, I noticed something interesting, Alex hadn't once used an overpower ability, despite the fact he had ABS armor out. Maybe his training wasn't able to increase his strength like mine had. A Memory ignited, birds can fly, but in order to do so, their body weight is a lot lower. Meaning his health couldn't be more than 5 points, and his weight was too low for any overpower abilities to activate in his favor. Maybe mine would work now.

I set my blade defensively this time, and let him come closer. As he slashed, I hit the cross guard of it, and removed my guard at the same instant. The result of that technique was that he had his arm shot way to the side, and I managed to slash across his chest. I returned to the guard position right after that hit, and blocked his counter attack. This time when he swung, I rushed right behind him, going through the opening from the slash. I turned around, and slashed him, just as a fifth light joined with my blade, giving it the equivalent of fire 1. He howled at that hit, fire flowing through the holes on his armor. I slashed at his chest, but he blocked it, and his black flames smothered the flames covering his body.

He was obviously furious at this, as his face was so contorted with rage it would have been funny, except for the bit where it was terrifying. He swung wildly now, and his blade moved a lot faster than I would have liked it to do. I was being pushed on the defensive now, his movements almost impossible to read. The only reason I wasn't dead yet is because of the ABS system, the enhanced speed let me move at a speed high enough to keep up with him. The sixth light joined with my blade. Alex kept up the assault, his black flames igniting the grass before it was destroyed. Flames were coming off my blade as well, but they were not enough for what I was planning to do. The seventh and eighth lights joined with the blade, the fire enchantment went up a level. Alex turned around then, and ripped through the remaining six wolves, trying to stop the lights from coming into my blade. What he didn't realize was that each of those lights was actually the souls of the wolves in this world. Lights nine through fourteen entered the blade. The flame enchantment increased to level four.

"Fourteen" I muttered, just enough for Alex to hear me

"Fourteen useless wolves died yes, you are correct" Alex responded

"No, fourteen of my friends were killed today, and their souls are now joined with my blade"

"Oh, so what, weaklings like that can't help themselves, much less save you now."

"wrong, these wolves were enchanted by my flute earlier, they are now in my inventory as an Item, Wolf Gem, I can use that on anything I want in the wolf set, or I can keep them this way and let their spirits empower my blade.

I rushed straight at him, releasing the fourteen flames at the same time. Alex blocked the attack without thinking, and the flames born of the wolves leapt out, incinerating the black flames. Alex ran straight for the copy of him fighting Kira, and I rushed to assist her.

When Alex joined with it, his flames reignited, and his wings were healed, as well as growing a second set of wings borne of flames. His Spirit armor shrunk a little, and was replaced by knight parts. His armor now had ghostly purple highlights though, which added to the image of darkness he presented.

Kira looked at me "your armor, it looks even more powerful than before"

"Yeah," I muttered, "but I lost my entire pack to get it."

She looked stunned a moment, then pointed her blade at Alex "then this guy needs to pay big time, let's go"

She charged straight at him, and stabbed at him several times, then retreated.

"He's pretty good" I muttered, Kira just nodded "he dodged every last one of those hits

Alex moved forwards, letting his blade drag across the ground, igniting the area with his flames. I leapt forward, allowing my blade to clash against his. The black flames kept moving forward, but with the fourteen flames guarding me, the flames Alex used were useless. Kira rushed in right as I retreated, and stabbed Alex in the chest, then retreated again. Alex lunged at her next, giving me the ability to impale him in the back with my blade. His Flames stopped the worst of it though. Kira rammed straight into him on the side without his sword sending him flying. As he was in the air, I ran under him and slashed upwards, throwing him pretty far.

When I saw where he landed, I cursed, he landed right beside Liam and his Enemy. Alex absorbed that too. His armor grew heavier, and his flames shifted from wings to a second sword, giving him dual-wielding abilities. Just then, I heard a voice in my head. "dig four spaces down"

I told kira to wait a cover me, and did what the voice said. There was a chest. This one contained several other gems I hadn't seen before. Swords master essence. "give those to the girl."

Kira took the gems, and her armor changed again. The armor gained very prominent gold highlights, with red streaks around the armor making it look like it was moving. Her rapier had its hilt redesigned so it fit her hand a lot better. She gasped. "Wow, these gems are amazing, but later you're going to explain how you found them."

When we got to Liam, he was already tearing Alex to shreds with the disaster armor. His armor was switched to a white base, with both gold and green highlights on it. He yelled out to us "looks like those gems actually do something after all"

Alex was pissed, Coach had destroyed the last Copy himself, so Alex was stuck fighting the four of us himself. I looked at Coach "no luck with gems for you yet, I guess"

He looked at me "that was going to be tomorrow's lesson kid, I've had my set of them a long time, the brawlers gems"

We all faced Alex, "it's over", I called out, "now why don't you log out so we can finish you in reality as well"

Alex laughed, pointing his blade up high "cursed soldiers, appear before your master, and signal the end." He dropped his blade into the ground, and an army of Wither skeletons crawled up from the ground as night fell. His sword reappeared at his side. "I'm sorry Cheater, but this is your end"

Kira and the others looked at me, they were all clearly afraid of Alex, and to be honest, I couldn't blame them, this guy was seriously out of his mind, and we could all tell he meant what he said. I looked at Alex

"Yeah, you have a lot of skeletons, but they aren't the only thing that rises with the night" I pulled out the flute, and let a single note out. Almost instantly, the same amount of wolves entered the field, none tamed, but all looking at the skeletons like they were a meal.

Kira and the others slowly got up, and she spoke up.

"Sorry Edward, but I'm not letting you have all the fun here."

Liam spoke up next. "Yeah, I'm itching to shoot our dear friend in the face right about now

Coach came next. "Well, the kids here are all going to fight, so it would be a disgrace if the only adult chickened out now."

Alex laughed again, and he spoke up, his voice regaining its perfectly even qualities. "well, then, let the true games begin now, all forces, eliminate everything"

I responded. With my flute, instinctively knowing the melody needed to get them to attack, then spoke up to my friends "lets tear this guy in half"


	24. Confrontation part 2

Minecraft VR Chapter 24-Confrontation part 2

My army of wolves was ready almost instantly, but they did have the usual Wolf behaviour, so they weren't going to attack yet. The skeletons likewise seemed to be armed with only their standard AI, so they weren't going to attack my Wolves yet. Alex and I stayed still, so the armies were almost equal. The difference was in the fact that by my side was Kira and the others, everyone ready to fight Alex for their own reasons, but none of us were willing to lose. Alex was getting impatient though, his skeletons must be hard to control. I know my wolves weren't exactly happy not being allowed to roam. Then, a shot by a skeleton aiming at me hit a wolf, turning the entire wolf army against the skeletons. A Wolf took out a skeleton, and the battle began in full.

My wolves were certainly faster than skeletons, but their lack of ranged capabilities or something to negate the Wither effect made the skeletons extremely dangerous as well. The only thing keeping the tides even at the moment was Liam. Because of his ABS ranged training in the real world, he was able to fire arrows incredibly quickly, and his flames often leapt from skeleton to skeleton, engulfing them in incredibly bright blue flames. Kira, Coach and I held back for the moment, we wanted to avoid the dangers of the Wither effect if at all possible, so we were stuck trying to shoot them from distances we were not accustomed to, greatly decreasing our worth in this fight. Alex was staying back though, so I figured he must be trying to let his skeletons win the fight, while keeping his arrows intact, so he could pick us off as we approached him.

That was only one of our problems though, his black flame dual wielding ability was probably his one shot ability, and mine wasn't close to anything that would be useful in a combat situation. A skill like that would mean even if we could get close to him, he could easily dispatch whoever got there first. Kira noticed it too, our best chance was if the wolves won the battle, and we could get them to charge at Alex. Her knight's armor was amazing and all, but nobody was good enough that they wanted to be near those black flames. I still had by Wolf flames, but they were from a gem, and if I remembered what Coach said, they could easily corrupt someone who used them too often, like what happened to Alex. He had also said though, that once a gem takes over, the persons mind is completely wiped out, through a program override that changes memories in the system.

But for now, I needed to focus on the battlefield, and not my own problems. Liam looked tired out, probably the intense concentration the large scale battle was taking was interfering with his minds other functions. I told him to stand back for a while, and recover his energy. He said he was fine, but he did so anyways. My troops were down to about 40 wolves, and Alex had 60 skeletons. I got out the flute, and began to play again. More wolves joined in the battle, equalling up to a new total of 50 wolves to 60 skeletons, still not good, but better than nothing.

Kira and Coach were getting anxious though, they were the only two who had done nothing so Far in the large scale part, and were probably feeling a bit useless. I went up to Kira, and asked her if she could help Liam out. She agreed thankfully, and wen to find him. Coach looked at me a bit funny, but didn't say anything. I told him that he should probably watch Alex, since I had to focus on my wolves, and I didn't want Alex to be able to ambush us. When I got back, it was around 30 wolves to 50 skeletons. My flute wasn't calling any more wolves though, so I had no choice but to let them do their thing. At the 20-45 mark though, it looked like the wolves were retreating. They went into some nearby woods, and let the skeletons come to them. Some tree sprouts grew as the skeletons went in, laying the ambush tactic that wolves were good at. I could sense the numbers now, the wolves were a lot more focused then usual, and I could see why.

They were in the woods, reducing the skeletons Line of sight.

Wolves, despite popular opinion, are very good at ambushing large forces.

It was night, the best time for wolves to hunt.

Alex knew this too, so he tried to shoot his flames at the trees using a bow. He wasn't near as good as Liam though, so I was able to knock his flames way off course every shot he made. Liam showed up soon after, and took over shooting down the arrows. Kira asked where the wolves went, so I pointed with the hand that wasn't holding the sword in the woods. She was close to laughing, then coach came by.

"Alex is one the move, he's headed straight here"

Kira and the others looked at me "yeah, we are going, this has to end now"

Kira nodded "I guess so, would be nice if we didn't have to risk our necks to take him down though"

Liam answered her "yeah, but this guy, he won't stop here, he would probably take out anyone he seen"

"Let's go" I said, and moved towards where coach reported Alex to be moving to.

When we got there, Alex was humming the song again. He looked at us. "so then, it appears your wolves are smarter than you are, they at least know how to ambush someone, unlike you."

"I don't need any ambush." I replied "my sword is enough"

Alex glanced at me "well then, let's get straight to the part where you die"

He charged at me, both of his blades moving rather fast. Then Kira stepped in. "yeah, sorry Edward, but I'm not letting you do this alone" she blocked one of the blades, but Alex was unperturbed. One down him said, and launched his black sword at Coach, impaling him. The sword came back into his hands as I stabbed him. He cursed as the Wolf flames erupted out of the blade, stopping his auto-heal ability. Liam went by coach. Kira and I were being kept busy by the two blades though, so we couldn't check on Coach. No help was coming from the forest for either of us though, as the Skeletons were still alive, so my wolves weren't going to return for a while.

Alex was attacking really often though, so I had to concentrate on survival instead of how to negate his ABS modes other bonuses. Soon I realized the Wolf flames were the only reason we were still alive, since they were adopting a more defensive mode right now to keep us alive. Kira was likewise using her armors natural mobility to attack from a lot of different directions, forcing Alex to focus a lot on her side of the battle, giving me time to rest. She was putting herself at risk though, so I had to hit him a second time to get his focus back on me. Kira then slashed him, and whipped her sword in a half circle, using his momentary indecision to slash him once more. He was knocked back by the last hit, And Liam Shot his Blue arrow straight into Alex's heart, shattering his chest plate. Alex got up, and charged right at the three of us, getting another arrow, this time in the head, taking that out. His black flames vanished.

The three of us walked up to him, Liam drawing his blade. The three blades hit him in a different side of his body, and he vanished. We all knew it wasn't over yet though, he was going to try to get rid of our real bodies as well. We told Liam where to go, and logged out.

When I logged off, I told my mother that Coach called me, and he said he needed my help right now. She told me not to stay out very long, and she would call him right away to make sure I made it. I left then, and hurried to the Gym. Liam was already there, and thankfully too, because the second Kira made it, Coach called us in the gym.

"Sorry guys, but I got killed by that kid once, and I'm guessing you whipped him in that game, but this isn't a game anymore, so you can't take chances. He handed us each a jacket, with matching pants. I noticed they were a lot heavier than they should be.

"These have the usual weights covering most of your bodies, they should block knives, but don't take chances". We all put them on and went outside, where Alex was waiting.

He didn't waste any time talking, and pulled out two giant butcher knives. This was definitely not my favorite way to end a night. He ran at us, and brought the two knives down. The jackets did do their job, but the impact sure hurt. The next time though, he aimed slightly to the side, taking off my jacket. Then it happened again. His movements became a lot slower, or maybe they were just easier to read. The next time he lunged at Kira, I stepped into his guard and snapped his wrist, forcing him to drop one. Kira kicked his second hand, forcing him to drop the last weapon. Liam walked up to him

" the next time you try to kill someone, make sure you don't attack someone whose dad taught them every type of martial arts on the planet, idiot." Liam then punched him in the chest, probably breaking his ribs. "and never come at three people when you have knives, You might as well be giving them weapons. Liam hit him again, knocking him out. We dragged him into the gym, and Kira lent Coach her Cell phone, seeing as Coach lost everything when he lost in VR, even for his Gym. Coach called the cops, and we got called in for questioning and all that, we weren't there long though, Alex's mom came in and said he had run off with two of her Knives, and They found the Knives in the street, so that ended that problem, and we could now focus our efforts on finishing VR.

-End of Chapter 24-

So yeah, todays chapter ends the Alex arc, meaning I get to refocus on Having the guys clear the game, if anyone was wondering, if the three entries had come in, I was going to keep this arc going by introducing characters on the Side of Alex, but instead I did this, next up though, I might do an entire Arc in the Nether, but if you guys have any other ideas, feel free to use the Reviews or PM systems to let me know. I will continue to write around Thursday regardless though.


	25. Flame Fortress

Minecraft VR Chapter 25: Flame Fortress

After the Alex incidents were dealt with, we decided that it would be a good idea to try to finish the game before more conflicts in VR entered the real world. Alex will be going on trial in a few months for the attacks, but for now he was still in the hospital. Apparently Liam has a much better fist then we all thought. Eventually we decided that the fastest way for us to clear the game was by going through the Nether, and hoping nothing got majorly changed by the black flames. Kira brought a lot of eggs, as well as a bunch of fence-posts to build a corral, and Liam brought his usual arrow supply, plus cobblestone. I brought a bunch of things to use to make armor and pickaxes with, as well as food, and the items to make an enchanting table at max capacity.

We all stepped into the gate by my house at the same time. We emerged by the same cliffs as before, but most of it had deep gouges made by the Wither during the black Flames incident. Zombie Pigmen were wandering around the map, not very dangerous now that siege mode was turned off. We still were careful, seeing as there was a lot more flying mobs in the Nether then we would like, so we had to be careful not to get close enough to an edge that a Ghast shot would knock us into the magma. We set up a trail of Cobblestone behind us, giving us a clear trail back to base whenever we needed to do so and eventually found the first fortress. This one wasn't going to be used to gather Blaze rods though; this one was to build our home base where nothing could spawn.

The intense size of such a place was enormous, and the wood I made barely was enough to transport the Nether Stone to the edge of the Lava for us to start work on the fortress. The first three levels of the entryway were soon completed, and we moved on in the world to an area with Blaze spawners, the Items to create the enemy that drops one half of the materials needed to find a stronghold, and then activate it. The only place we could find though was so enormous we decided to call it the flame fortress. When we got in it however, we were right in the middle of an ambush by several Blaze. At the end of it, we ran out of the room. The Nether really didn't seem to like us, and all of our weapons except Kira's were fire-based, reducing their effectiveness majorly. The Blaze had the ability to fly as well, meaning if we charged head on Ghasts could get involved, and those things were very annoying. The temperature here was sweltering as well, so our concentration was down.

Once we all had our health back to normal, we went back into that room, and found the Blaze spawner, good, that means there is a way to turn off the ambush once we get what we needed. Immediately after though, it spawned three Blaze, meaning the fight had begun. I swung my blade at the first one, but it flew backward, ignoring my swing, and shot its projectile, lighting the area near me on fire. It moved into a corner though, allowing me to kill it. I got hit though, and had to retreat while I waited for the fires to die down. When I got up, Liam went down. The entire room was basically flames by now, and the Blaze was getting out of hand. I used my pickaxe to put out each and every fire I could find, then ran straight back into the battle zone. The blaze just kept on coming, igniting everything in sight before we could kill them. Soon enough we had all the rods we needed, but now a platoon of Blaze was blocking the exit, as well as Wither Skeletons patrolling the hallways. I took on the Blaze, Kira removed the spawner, and Liam made sure we weren't ambushed while we were doing that. We closed off that room, and started going down the Fortress, hoping we could find a way out, since getting through a platoon of things with the wither effect was a very bad idea, and with three of us, one skeleton a hallway was manageable, if not very fun.

Eventually we made it to the bottom layer of the fortress, and left it, 40 magma cream would be more than enough to get us to The End. When we got home though, there was no Endermen around, and without their Pearls, the rest of the job was for no reason. We all decided to train in the meantime though, because if the Wither Hydra taught us anything, it was that the new versions of the beasts that the original Minecraft had are a lot more dangerous than we would like.

Back in real life though, Coach wasn't doing so well. Kira and I were the only ones who would train at his place now that he lost his VR network, so he was losing a lot of money, and would soon have to sell the gym to somebody else, and he was really shaken about that idea.

I couldn't die in this, because of my mom, but if I didn't start doing things that could get me killed, Coach would be out of business, and even if we did win in time, there was no guarantee just the publicity would be enough to keep his place open with all its functions gone. Man, VR sure was causing problems across the board. Then there was the Creator to worry about. I somehow doubted that he would let us win the game this easily; he will probably make it even more complicated soon.

I wasn't the only one thinking about it either. Kira and Liam both were trying to hide it, but it was pretty obvious they were getting worn out by the constant stress of this game. We had to win the game soon, or the stress itself might just kill us anyways.

-End of Chapter 25-

Yeah, looks like a full Arc in the Nether is impossible with the current version of Minecraft, so instead we get to go straight into the Ender Dragon part of the story, as always, feel free to submit ideas for the game, I will see if I can put them in somewhere.


	26. The Overworld's Last Day

Minecraft VR chapter 26: the overworld's final day

"I have found the stronghold, seven eyes will be needed to activate it, how many do we have?" I said, looking towards both Kira and Liam, careful not to let my vision favor one or the other.

Kira responded "we have twelve, so we can leave at any time."

"Good," I responded, "then we will allow ourselves one last day in the Overworld before we leave to finish this game."

I looked in the sealed chest, and took out the four items we had gained by defeating the Wither Hydra long ago, the wither gems. "Each of us is taking one of these, the other one will stay here in case we don't beat the Ender Dragon." My voice had a note of finality about it, and nobody argued, everyone took one, and then went to their chosen area.

Kira went by her Chicken coop, and destroyed all the wood, allowing the Chickens, all of which had grown to their adult sizes, to roam. She then replaced all the farms with dirt, and kept exactly one stack of each type of seed. In the kitchen she took out a full stack of chicken for each of us, then went into her house and finished up packing, emerging with all her gear enchanted, and the Warrior gems in place. The Wither Gem she carried didn't seem to be doing anything to her armor though, which was a relief. I was starting to like the armor she was wearing.

Liam spent his day in the old training area, making sure he could switch between both his Bow and Sword with almost no delay. He was getting pretty good at it too, but once we beat this, a skill like that would probably be a problem in the real world, seeing as the only thing things a skill like that is good for is either the army or organized crime, neither of which would be good for him, he would end up questioning an order and getting himself in trouble probably. That being said though, in the fight against Alex in the Real World, Liam was probably the best fighter out of the three of us, so maybe he could do something in Boxing or something like that.

I was thinking too much though, so I had to go out into the woods we had set up for my wolves when I didn't need them. I ran with them most of the day, amazed I was managing to dodge all the trees at the speeds we were going. I made a mental note to thank Coach later. Near the end of the day, I ran straight at a tree, using the ABS system to launch behind the pack. I opened all the gates afterwards, and told each wolf it could follow me, or roam the world themselves. A full pack of 15 wolves decided they were going to come and run with me one last time, which was enough, I was glad for the help, and gave each wolf two full Chickens to prove it to them.

We all gathered at the outskirts of the town, an area people had used many times, and I showed the two the path my wolves and I had found using a good supply of eyes. The wolves were all following us, but they kept their distance, making sure no mobs got close enough to interrupt us. We stopped at the Chamber of the Gods Liam and I used to get his armor, and prayed one last time. We then left it untouched. Hopefully the Structure will be reused some time, but even if it's not, the system will have some memory of the area we first had an advantage against Alex.

The stronghold itself wasn't all that hard to find, despite it being a major pain to get too. It was nestled in a ravine, and a stream rushed right past it, nearly disabling the portal. It was rather large, but even so, my wolves followed us all the way through it as we gathered items we thought we could use. A lot of it went into stuff we could use in case the Dragon wasn't the end, but I was holding back, I did actually know where the portal was, but I hadn't said yet. I wanted to stay in this world a bit longer, where both Humans and Animals were capable of understanding each other, even if it did have its own risks.

Kira was probably about the same, judging by how she made sure the Chickens were free, even if once we got to the portal room they would all vanish anyhow. Looking back, I did the same with the wolves, and even before I got my wolf armor, I had never killed a wolf myself. "It's a good thing you didn't" that same voice I had heard back when the gems first came around was speaking again.

"Who are you?" I asked, curious as to who it was that was guiding me this whole time.

" I am one of what you call the wolf gems, spirit of a wolf the other two-leg spirit male killed." The voice answered, obviously not giving a name.

"well, sorry to say it, my friend, but after this I won't be able to talk with you anymore," I responded to the wolf, noting that if it wanted too, it could probably corrupt me as the others had done to Alex.

"Not so, cub, the wolf spirit has been, as the god of this place calls it, _programmed_ into your brain, we will always be there to assist you if you call on us." The voice spoke with the same finality I had used earlier, but it wasn't a threating tone, more like reminding me.

When stopped talking, I opened my eyes, which I hadn't noticed were even closed, and looked around, the others were opening their eyes too, then I noticed where we were. We had reached the portal room.

"Did all of us just pass out at the same time or something?" Kira asked, evidently confused.

"Not pass out exactly, more like, those gems made sure we knew they weren't going anywhere" I responded.

"Wait a second; did we all just speak with some other mind that has been **programmed **into our minds?" Liam this time

"Yeah," Kira responded, but to be honest, I'm more worried about what comes next, let's get this over with."

Liam and I both nodded, and the three of us, plus the wolf pack, entered the portal, ready to face our last opponent with the powers our gems had given us, the Ender Dragon, its armored form finally to be revealed.

-end of Chapter 26-


	27. World Boss 01

-World Boss 01: Ender Dragon-

When we emerged in The End, My friends and I were all on a single platform, and yes, that did include the wolves, who really wanted to get the heck away from the area. Liam followed our standard ranged battle protocol, setting himself up to intercept the boss while the rest of us found a way to get ourselves down to the ground, where our skills would be better used. The path we were making used obsidian, a block the dragon can't destroy with its auto-destruction ability. This was all supposing the dragon followed the same AI patterns as its previous stage of course. Eventually it noticed us, and charged, right before we got into the safe zone. Liam shot it, and it reared back for a moment, allowing the ground force to assemble. The battle could now begin.

Liam came down to join us, using his arrows to distract the dragon long enough for him to get down to the target zone. We then ran for the middle point of the island. Nobody wanted to get sent to the void, and this thing had a very good chance of doing it where we were at the current moment. The terrain was almost mountainous though, meaning the ender dragons ability to ignore End Stone was causing major problems for us, and of course that was before the Endermen showed up. That was my job; distract the Endermen with the help of the wolves. The wolf spirit was a major help there, as his sensory abilities let us fight while keeping our back guarded a lot better than I would be able to do otherwise.

The teleportation bit was useful for them, but it had a major drawback, they were hit quite easily by Liam if an arrow missed its mark, which rarely happened, but I could use as much help as possible. The Endermen had a rather annoying pre-programmed ability as well; they would constantly get in the way of the Ender dragon, like it was their master or something. I heard Liam yell out.

"What?" I asked, rather annoyed at the interruption, as Endermen were not something to be faced if you were distracted, and that's before they became as easy to find as Zombies, Creepers, and skeletons combined.

"Got the last Tower finally, it can't heal anymore." Liam responded, letting me know the plan was able to move on into the third stage.

Now Kira got her turn, attacking the Ender Dragon on its attacking runs. This was a type of style that required a lot of accuracy and timing, something Kira was incredibly good at. On just about every swoop, she would hit it, and when it reared its head up, Liam would get its face with a massive barrage of arrows, but its health was a lot higher than before to compensate for the amount of people that were expected to make it through, which was around thirty, but I had yet to hear of a group beating the dragon. Then I looked at the dragon, the bar read Ender Dragon, not Armored Ender Dragon, meaning this fight wasn't even the end anymore, so we might have to fight again right after this one.

I alerted the other two about it, but they just nodded, we all knew anyways that this fight here and now was our problem. I got hit head on by the dragon, the ABS system working against me to launch me in the air in the path of the dragon; reducing my health a lot lower then I had seen it go in a while. I drank a health potion, and continued, but at the same time, my mind was thinking, what if I could take advantage of the ABS system. The others weren't faring as well as I would like at the moment either, the contact with Endermen was dealing enough damage to them that they had lost a bit more potions then I expected, and even I was having problems, teleporting enemies was annoying no matter how you look at it.

"let me take over" the wolf spirit spoke up, it was strained, but still understandable " I will show you how to use what you call the ABS system against the Dragon without taking the risk you are thinking of."

"Sorry, but I've gotta do this my way at least once." I replied, fully knowing the chance that I was taking, but hey, this would be fun at least.

I ran at the Dragon, ignoring the Endermen I was provoking, and allowing them to teleport towards me. As it swooped down, I did a jump off a mountain, and used the lift from it to get above the dragon, and aimed my blade at it, calling all my wolves in a downward strike at the dragon. As each one hit the dragon, they were thrown off, dealing damage to both the dragon and themselves. The secondary effect of this was that when the dragon reared up, I got my sword in its head, and all the Endermen took fall Damage, as well as what the wolves did to it. As I launched off it, I opened my mind to the wolf spirit.

"You're up" I told it, and let Him take control of the body. It was a weird sensation, like watching a character in a normal shooter video game. The difference was that this was my body, so the feeling was a lot more like what I imagined being possessed was like. The spirit had a lot better senses then me though, and was constantly moving, letting the swords grip move towards the blade, giving it almost perfect control over the weapon.

It moved the weapon like it was part of our body, as if it was its old claws. The ABS system was used every strike, letting our weight advantage over the Skeletal Endermen take one out every strike. When the Dragon came, It would sidestep the dragon, and then slash it, letting the weapons weight itself do the damage, conserving our strength for enemies we could kill in one shot.

The rush of energy through our bodies, the kill or be killed factor in it, was like nothing I had ever felt before. The wolves themselves were now switching between the targets like we were doing. Eventually, the Dragon collapsed, and light shot out from its body, ripping what remained of the Endermen army to pieces, and fading to reveal two items, one was a stone glyph in the ground replacing the usual game ending part, and the other was three Dragon Gems, the design was more like scales, but otherwise was similar to the Wither Gems we all carried. The Spirit receded back into my mind, allowing me to move again.

The Glyph was made of stone, but not any stone we had ever seen, and it was more like a clock then anything, But it had 8 circles in it, each with the numerals one through eight inscribed in it, with lines connecting one and seven, two and four, and eight and three. Five, the server we were in, was pulsing white, and the other world, six was dark, I tapped five, then six, and a white line intercepted it, the emblem jutting out to reveal a portal, this one white. We all looked at each other, nodded, and entered world six.

-End of Chapter 7-


	28. Control

Minecraft VR chapter 28: Control

We stepped out of the portal and onto an island devoid of all trees. On top of the island was a village made out of logs, but it looked human made, not like an NPC village usually did. And that wasn't even accounting for the gates, or the guards surrounding the central tower. Nobody had on any recipe parts though, and all they had was leather armor and stone tools, neither of which do the job they are supposed to do very well. Compared to the players here, our ABS iron-cloth-diamond hybrid armor was very out of place. Adding to that, the portal we went through had sunk under the water, and encased itself in Bedrock, preventing us from getting back to our world.

"well then, I guess we have to ask the guards what's happening that they need to do so much." Kira voiced what everyone was thinking even though nobody wanted to say much, this definitely wasn't like our world.

We approached one of the guards, black hair, brown eyes, all items iron, several steps above the rest of the locals. "Hey, are you guys having Iron troubles or something?" I asked, thinking that they might not know how to mine underwater safely.

"I'm sorry, but you will have to proceed to the deposit area with your finds on your trek citizens." The guard spoke the words like he had so many times before now.

"Deposit area?" Liam spoke the words like he didn't understand what they meant, or maybe like me he didn't want them to mean what we thought.

"yes, the deposit area, the place where you go whenever you come back to this island after a trip to give what you found to the collective bank, understood?"

"Well, not really" I answered "you see, we keep what we find, and we rather enjoy playing the game this way, so why should we give it up?"

"All who do not give up their possessions when they encounter an officer of the collective will be eliminated" the guard replied, apparently not getting the idea that he was telling us what we needed to know.

I sheathed my sword and walked away "sorry, but I'm not into organized gangs, I'm leaving, if these two want though, they could join with you" Kira and Liam both started following me towards the ocean.

"no, I'm the one who is sorry, by the authority of the king, you must be destroyed, my apologies for not making that clear." At his words, several other guards appeared from various posts located around the island, and charged at us.

"So much for avoiding trouble" Kira muttered, but at the same time, I got the feeling she wasn't all that disappointed by the fact we would need to fight an entire village worth of guards at once.

"_Sorry kid, but I'm going to be helping you out this time" _it was the Wolf spirit again.

"_Don't be sorry about it, I was about to ask if you could help anyways." _I responded to him (at least I thought it was male, but I couldn't tell)

I got out my Wolf blade, its wolf calling ability wasn't very helpful here, but I wanted to even out the score as much as possible. Liam and Kira got themselves ready as well, our respective armors showing the fact that we were not going to go down easily, I let the wolf take over again, but he kept me partially in our body. "You need to learn how to fight like a wolf; the enemies won't be easy from now on."

The guards charged, and we waited, letting them move closer, and let my blade hang a little closer to the ground than usual, as if I was going to let them hit me. When they came close, I snapped ahead, moving my blade in an arc, as if it was a claw, knocking the sword aside and dealing a massive blow to the guards who were around me at the time. When I got behind the guards, I pivoted on one leg, bringing me behind them, and let my blade cut through them a second time, taking out most of them. One of the guards beside me lunged, hoping I was off edge from the attack, my blade was too far away to hit him, so I sidestepped, kicked his leg out, then slashed him, letting the ABS system launch him straight into the cliff. By this time, the guards were getting smarter, and sounded the order to retreat. The wolf spirit retreated again

The three of us jumped into the ocean, and set up a ladder in an area so we could breathe at least, nobody wanted too, but once again it looked like we would have to go underground for a retreat while we gathered our own strength. We were good, but we all knew that inside that tower, someone probably held the peoples recipe collection, and with the addition of the ABS system, they were probably even harder to beat then Alex, so we couldn't go into the area during the day.

The area we were in this time was even more restricting then when we left during the Alex incident, and had the added disadvantage of literally being on top of our enemies base, so we couldn't expand it very well, and the amount of Ores we could find was very limited. Kira and I were used to having a lot of freedom though, so we did set up an area where we could fight and all that without damaging our base, and destroying what little we could find. That did mean though, that we could happen upon the stronghold, and use our few remaining eyes to activate it, allowing us to leave this area behind.

Kira, Liam and I each built a house again though, and with Kira's wool, we were able to each have a bed, which was going to be a lifesaver, as we all were going to start summer break, we would be able to deal with VR far more often, and still have time to visit Coach. Last time I was at his gym, he was getting several people back, the police having took a statement from him that said that yes, we did in fact train at his gym, and as such, he was getting a form of popularity, although the no-light thing still caused problems for some people, he was at least able to continue on for a bit longer, while we were busy trying to clear the game.

-End of Chapter 28-


	29. Wooden Hope

Minecraft VR Chapter 29: Wooden Hope

We had been living under the enemies base barely a week, and already we were reaching the proportions of legends for the base. The villagers hid when we were around, and never seemed to report our location right. The guards called us living nightmares, because the rumor went that if you saw one of us, you wouldn't last longer than a week. All of this was of course encouraged by us, seeing as it made sneaking around areas a lot easier. The guards weren't very happy though by the looks of things. Apparently a lot of their control revolved around their food bank, which was losing food a lot.

We had found enough materials to make sets of armor that let us blend in decently, while using enchantments that gave us a major advantage against the standard guards they still sent out against us. There was the occasional guard who had slightly better equipment, but even that wasn't a match for us, and so they frequently suffered from armor breakage, which was probably not very fun for them. I'm still wondering how the guards reported in that a guy in iron took out an entire squadron with a stone blade.

We didn't spend all our time annoying the so called leaders up top though. Only one of us would invade the village, the other two would search the area we had mapped out in search of a village, as one of the things we agreed on was that if we could, we would like to avoid the Nether this time around, even though the others didn't seem to enjoy looking for the Nether, we got the feeling they preferred the sea to an ocean of Lava. On that though, I couldn't exactly fault them, seeing as I didn't much like it either.

Eventually we did find one, and this time it was large enough that a priest who was selling a stack of eye of ender, at 8 emeralds per piece. We didn't have anything at the moment though, so we had to trade with the local villagers to get the needed eyes to access our third world. When we got the eyes though, we were met with an annoyance, the stronghold was underwater, and surrounded by four towers similar to the one Alex used back in World 8. The open segments on them were at sea level though, so we managed to get inside.

Once we were through, we were met by armed guards, this time using recipe weapons and armor. They were also using ABS, so they were going to be a lot more annoying than we had time for. They were using black armor with dark blue highlights, but aside from that, it wasn't anything flashy. They weren't even good enough to get the spirit to say anything. In the end though, we had to leave when our armor broke. We were careful to leave as much of a trail as possible, maybe the guys above us would figure it out. When we got back and changed our weapons though, we found our usual exit spot blocked by a group of guards in what looked almost like suits.

"The collective will not wait much longer, surrender your items or we will use deadly force to take them." The captain was wearing a red variant of the uniform.

"sorry, but we have better things to do then entertain guests" I hadn't noticed, but wolf had snuck up, and taken control of the body.

"_Sorry kid, but this guy is even more dangerous than your old friend Alex." _ Wolf was on edge for sure.

"_alright then, we might have to switch though, if he is that bad, we should try to confuse him." _I answered.

We made the plan in an instant, and Kira looked like she had made her plan with help from the swords master as well. When the grunts attacked, we retreated, luring them into the water. When they got there, their Recipe bonus activated, boosting their speed higher than our own. We kept going though, and burst back into our base. The grunts were moving too fast, and destroyed the ladder as they fell. When they reached the ground, Wolf used our blade and knocked the enemy to the ground, dealing massive fall damage. We still hadn't seen any sight of the leader by the time we had finished off half the grunts. When there was barely any left, the leader finally showed up. He had his eyes covered by a head band, and a helmet protected his sides. Hi armor was black like the ones from the tower earlier, and he had two spikes clipped onto his back. The worst part though, was that he had two swords on him as well, dual wielding them as well.

"_Told you it was a trap." _The voice of wolf echoed through my mind, but it wasn't really there, I was watching from outside my body, watching as he set his back spikes into his blades, extending their reach_._

I snapped back _"yeah, you did, but after all, we aren't sure who got trapped yet"_

The figure in front of us moved just like it did while I was out of my body, extending his blades with the spikes. "Well then, it looks like you did a number on my toys, so why don't you be nice little brats and disappear."

"sorry." I replied "but I would rather be dead then be with a freak like you"

"Well now, that wasn't very nice now was it? I guess I'll have to teach you how easily I can break that wooden hope you have as punishment." The figure readied his weapons, and for once I could say that I was looking forward to tearing someone to shreds.

He moved towards me, like Kira wasn't even around, and swung one sword down, keeping the other one back. I side stepped, and used his momentum to force a higher collision with my blade, increasing knockback. When he went backwards, his blade nearly hit Kira, who moved out of the way just in time. I switched with Wolf, letting him handle the next portion. When the little freak moved forwards, Wolf used the rebound off the first blade to block the second one, and ripped through the chest plate, shattering it, then scored three hits in succession, and let the downwards momentum shatter his remaining armor on Impact with the ground. At this, Wolf let me continue. I ran up to him, and let my blades point almost touch the ground, then ran at him, using the pendulum like motion of the blade to launch him one last time into the wall. Instead of dying though, he sunk into the rocks, like it was some sort of illusion.

When we got back to the base, I asked Kira what he thought that guy had meant by our hope being wooden, she wouldn't answer though, and when I logged off and asked Coach about it, he said that that figure was probably trying to get me mad at it, which was annoying, because it really worked. He also said though that I would need to watch Kira closely from now on, because something like that would likely affect her more than me, something about me being too thick skulled for it to have any lasting damage to me.

Liam was pissed when I told him about the incident, mostly because it meant that someone knew where we were at now, and we didn't want to leave the base undefended. He also said something about me needing to calm down during fights, but I wasn't really listening, seeing as he wasn't around when that guy was, so how could he know why I wanted that guy gone so badly.

Wolf wasn't much help either, seeing as he kept saying that I needed to keep the pack together, despite the fact that I bet he knew that if we ever wanted to do so, we would be able to take on the entire army above us. But still, there was a small part of me that said that I should relax, maybe take it easy a while, and get rid of the tension I felt. Too bad nobody else wants to talk, I think I'm going to head out for a walk, maybe clear my head a bit, try to find myself a new group, yeah, maybe that's what I needed right now.

-end of chapter 29-


	30. Wild Soul

Minecraft VR Chapter 30: Wild Soul

The past week has been really strange, I've been getting the feeling like maybe the three of us should split up, but then that fades, and Wolf comes back and he's on edge, but he won't say anything, so I end up getting annoyed at him too, even though that makes no sense. Liam and Kira wouldn't talk to me when I was in one of those bad moods; I couldn't blame them. The worst part of it was that it was affecting the real world as well, so I got in trouble at least twice.

Maybe it has something to do with that guy I seen earlier, the one who melted into the stone after saying all of us had "wooden hope" whatever that means. When I asked Kira and Liam if they thought we should go and check out that tower where we first saw him, they were kind of apprehensive about the idea.

"Why should we deliberately go somewhere where we know someone like that lives?" Liam asked

"I'm not sure, but I have the feeling he has something to do with the problems lately" I replied

"Well then, guess we have no choice, but if you start to go strange on us, we have to leave, ok?" Kira agreed, but I could tell it was mostly because she wanted to get out of the caves.

We set off with a little less food then last time, which I didn't mind, the guards at the tower probably had some food on them I could take if I needed to do so. Kira and Liam were ready fairly quickly, but I took a bit longer, I wanted to make sure if we met up with this guy today, we could get materials from his tower easier, as well as prepare for the next Ender Dragon, when we left though, a bunch of the annoying collective guards showed up

"Hand over your items, or else we will take them" another variation of the same threat, and by the same generic soldier types we seen an annoying amount of times before. _"Hey wolf, where do you think they keep getting new guards from?"_

"_They don't get new guards; these are illusions, just like the person you are looking for."_

"_And you neglected to say anything for what reason?"_

"_You didn't ask"_

I snapped back into reality as the illusions attacked us. "These aren't real people, these are illusions, and we can fight them at our full power" I yelled to the other two, and they both heard me, unleashing ABS mode and the gems at their disposal at the same time as I did the same. My armor base went white like always, but this time the shade was a bit darker than usual. The golden base lost some of its shine as well. Kira had no troubles with her armor, switching into her usual red and white armor, as well as her sword changing to the rapier form symbolic of the Swords master gems. Liam did his switch as always as well, getting the holy disaster armor into its ranger gem mode as easily as if he was born to do it.

My flames were unleashed as well, but they were a light blue instead of orange like they usually were. As the illusions came forward, I lashed out, letting the flames devour them like they didn't exist. When one disappeared though, a dark orb was created that I hadn't noticed before, and went where my flames couldn't reach them. As Kira and Liam continued their own fights, those orbs joined with the others until there was nothing left. We turned towards the sea, and dived in, that orb, roughly a full block around, was still following us, but I tried not to take any notice of it. While we were on the way there, Kira asked me how I knew about the Swordsmaster gems, and how come I gave them to her "I listened to the Wolf gems, and the one who usually speaks told me what to do"

She then asked me if Alex had dropped any gems, and I said that as far as I knew, they disappeared with him, or his armor, I wasn't sure which one had happened. The last thing she asked was if I had slotted in the gems yet, and I told her I hadn't yet, because we didn't know if we could control what happens then, both she and Liam said they were doing the same thing right now.

When we got into the tower it was mostly empty, but several other mobs spawned in the tower I didn't expect. The entire first floor was created as a wolf zone, where the wolves the owner found were bound, and left untamed, probably to avoid them teleporting. I used several tools to break them out, and then used my flute to tame them. Taming them took a little longer than usual, but it still worked. The second floor used a lighting mechanism to allow farming; we all enjoyed taking the wheat and carrots, then making food with that. The rest of the tower was composed of a maze of staircases that went both up and down to guarantee maximum annoyance for anybody who didn't have wings, or wasn't an orb watching three people struggling. Eventually we reached the top, where the person from last time was watching us.

"I've been waiting for you Edward" this guy had the usual voice for people who piss me off, calm, but with an obvious hint of contempt in it

"Yeah sorry, but I don't have time to chit-chat, why don't you just explain what the hell you did to me." I replied I wasn't exactly in the mood for mind games.

"I did nothing; you're the one who has the wooden hope after all"

"Mind explaining, I'm not really good with mind games"

"Then my explanation would be useless, so I'm going to show you it instead." The orb vanished, and appeared behind him.

The orb split apart, unleashing black flames that covered the man. Of course it didn't do anything but give him an upgrade, probably giving him a couple of whatever gem Alex had on him, but this guy was as strong as Alex before. The flames formed together on his arm, forming a kind of shield made of black and purple metal. The rest of his armor reformed to be less bulky, and his back spikes formed two black swords.

"You know, I'm starting to think dual wielding is the mark of someone who hates us" Kira muttered under her breath.

"Yeah" I replied "and that person never seems to die as easily as they should"

The guy ran towards us, moving faster than the Wither when it has no obstructions against it. I let my consciousness slide out, and Wolf took over, rolling to the side just in time to avoid the sword. The black flames were likewise blocked by wolfs flames, which were orange like mine used to be. Kira and Liam took their regular positions, hoping that he was going to act like the Wither. He didn't, and instead used the black flames to act like a rocket, and launched his sword down at Kira, at the same time his Shield morphed into a handheld bow, and shot black Flames at Liam, who barely deflected them with his own arrows. He landed on the ground beside his sword, and his flames created a shockwave around him, giving all of us a small wither effect. Wolf let the wolves go at the guy, but they were all cut down, and the few who survived got burned up by the burn and wither combo damage, incinerating their spirits as well.

"you see, Edward, it doesn't matter how hard you try, you never give up anything, so you can't get stronger, and as for you wolf, you let a human control when you can move around, and when you can't, your both pathetic." The man wasn't even trying to hide his contempt anymore. "You try to carry two types of consciousness around, all three of you, but you have no idea how to work as a team, if that is really the case, then maybe this is the limits of your power."

_Sorry wolf, I guess we can't win right now, this is probably it for us."_

"_Not happening kid, we made a promise to your coach right, that we would beat this game"_

"_Right, then we were going to meet the creator, and kick his ass."_

"_Now then, let's not waste any more time on this guy, and show him just how easily we can ignite even wooden hope"_

I slid forwards, getting control of my body back, but this time Wolf didn't back down. "2 wolf gems to weapon slot" two of the gems left my inventory, and joined with the wolf blade, turning it pure silver again, and igniting intense orange flames that flickered on and off at even a slight thought. "Three gems each to the four armor segments" the remaining twelve gems shot out of my chest, and hit split into four triangles, each one going into one of the four natural Minecraft armor slots, igniting the flames back to their full power, and changing the armor for a form that could keep up with what we needed it to do.

The arm guards gained a golden plate attached to them with the wolf symbol attached to them, and a lot more of the armor turned golden, while part of the helmet jutted out a fair bit, giving the impression of a wolf even more. The wolf blade changed into the Claw Blade, and then split, giving me dual-wielding as well. The cape itself was given several black lines, even though it didn't get any souls, it read a full three from the souls of the wolves that reignited when I got my power back. The armor itself had the front piece change to the orange of my flames, and the flute became silver. Lastly, every scrap of flames vanished, and the front of my jacket gained an orange and red strip down the front of it, and behind me, the flames ignited from a small area in the coat, and created a full set of wings.

"_This is it, the highest known stage of the wolf set, achieved by igniting the wild soul within you to its absolute limit, the ignited spirit armor._

"Wow, this is your hope the, I guess, huh Edward?" Kira asked.

"No, my hope is as weak as ever, this is the results of both my determination, and that of Wolf."

"still, it's amazing" Kira exclaimed, Liam was just plain shocked.

"Oh, wait until you see what we can do now" I exclaimed, "These wings aren't just for show you know."

"Enough with the discussion, its time I fought at full strength" with that, the figure let his blade drop, and several clones of him came out of the ground.

The sword came back into his hands, and the clones came at me. They each only had one blade though, and without a mind, they had no strategy except charge. Being an illusion as well, ABS would calculate they were so weak compared to me, I just slashed with one blade and took out their arms as well as the blade, then used the other blade to stop the next one. When I got to the figure, I slashed with both weapons, one trailing slightly behind the other, creating a burning x where he was, taking both of his swords out of his hands at once. I then ran straight into him, launching him into the air while I flew straight up, causing him to hit the wall. I went down on an angle, letting his body hit the ground.

"It's over Alex, I won"

-End of Chapter 30


	31. Radiant Heart

Minecraft VR chapter 31: radiant heart

Alex dropped his weapon. "Yeah, it is over, looks like you win again"

"If I remember correctly, that makes it 32 wins for me, and 15 for you." I replied

"Okay, would someone explain why the hell he didn't die that first time." Kira asked

"Fine," I replied "Alex here activated his one shot ability to revive himself, but he couldn't materialize in world 8, so when we opened the gate, he got to come through"

"right" "Alex replied, "After you shattered the Dark Spirit armor, I got my proper mind returned to me, and I used diamonds to repair the armor, in the process giving it a new ABS mode, and I got a new set of Gems, The duality gems, Which gave me my current stage, but I still haven't got to the stage that you Edward were given during this fight."

"well then care to explain what happened to the villagers?" I asked

"sure, when I fought you, a couple of illusions said we were doing an evacuation drill, so they all left, it was intended as a mind game, and it worked, you guys are now stronger than before."

"So then, I guess you know something about the Collective Army from your time above ground." Liam replied, indicating that while nobody really trusted him, we were at least going to use him to finish off the job in this world.

"Yeah, the so called portal in here is busted, so to get to the End here, you need to find the one pillar built on top of a working portal, and use it"

"But let me guess the other three won't be nice and let us get into the portal without a fight"

"Right, I have a map with the location of the remaining three, but I can't leave my post here until this world ends, otherwise there will be problems, so I can't help you out."

"Oh, and one more thing, that guy Coach? He is a family friend; he pretended to call the cops, I'm really at home now"

"_Great, I'm going to hate talking to him about this." I thought_

With that, we left the first Pillar, and I dove into the ocean, dousing my armor, which returned it to normal, and my second sword disappeared into the wolf blade. We set off to the second pillar, at a 120 degree angle, since it was probably the only one that was in the right vicinity for it to be a proper stronghold. When we got to the second stronghold, we were greeted by an indent in the middle of the ocean instead of the usual towers. It was sealed off instead of open, so when we entered the stronghold, I needed to ignite my armor again, so wolf and I both took the front of my mind like before. We managed to ignite, but it took a lot longer then I wanted it to do, and the balance felt a bit more fragile than before. Nonetheless, we made it from the chasm to the actual stronghold, but it wasn't lit any better. And of course there was a maze portion that would never naturally occur, but thanks to whoever owned this area, we spent a good three hours of our time experimenting till we found the exit.

When we got to the throne room, the second General was waiting. Even with my Ignited armor, the light level was really low, and I got the feeling that without it, we would be plunged into darkness. "Welcome weary ones, allow me to end your pitiful existence."

"Sorry, but why don't you just let us access your portal to get out of here?" I replied

"Sorry, but anything in here is for my personal use only, if you disagree, please return to the collective office."

"No thanks, the collective guys are to kill us on sight, we aren't exactly welcome there"

"And you aren't welcome here either, so why don't you let the darkness consume your existence, and find your peace."

With that, he charged at me, and I blocked the blade, but at the same time, the flames flickered, letting me get knocked back by the second attack that I couldn't see. Kira and Liam both went beside me, and I let my flames ignite, letting them see, but at the same time, I couldn't move, if I did, my flames would weaken, and his darkness would fall upon the team. The General of course noticed this, and focused all his efforts on getting towards the source of the light, man I hate being a Lantern. "See, Even with your friend with the highest power is useless, nobody with hearts as weak as yours could ever touch my power. I felt his arrow hit me, but I couldn't stop it.

The second arrow hit me at the same time as a sword slash, causing my flames to flicker. I stood up "yeah, my heart may be weak, and maybe I can't move, but I can still fight!" with that Wolf reignited my flames, and the second sword vanished, more flames igniting in exchange. I didn't get to do anything though, because that guy stabbed me a second time, and inflicted a paralyze status on me. He launched forwards for the finishing blow, and was met by Kira's blade.

"Sorry, but now I got this thing figured out, how Edward and Wolf fight together so well, now I can protect both of them!" she launched him backward, and the small flames vanished. "One gem to rapier" a small symbol that resembled a blade shot out of her, joining with her weapon, changing it from an Iron rapier to a Steel one. "Three gems to helmet" the three gems split up, and the helmet gained a top guard. "Five gems to both the chest plate and leggings. Ten orbs flew out, and her entire suit was bathed in a gold and blue glow. When it faded, the sleeves resembled waves, as well as the ends of the leg armor. The rest of it became even more streamlined. Several small diamonds protruded from the armor. It still wasn't extremely noticeable, but once you did, it was hard to look at anything else.

"_That is the power given to the knight whose radiant heart wishes to gain both speed and the ability to protect those around it, the swift knight armor."_

"_It's really nice, that's for sure" I replied to wolf, _I wasn't even able to speak the sight was so awesome.

The general then decided he was going to prove that he had a lot less sense than anybody in the planet, and attacked Kira, who moved so fast behind him she seemed to teleport even to me, and I was used to seeing really fast things. She slashed him twice in quick succession, forming an x like I did. She continued it though by slicing from between his legs until her sword cut through the top of his head, it was a game though, so the guy wasn't killed, but he lost three of his four armor slots, and his health visibly dropped. He was being thrown around by Kira, but judging by where I saw her and how he was moving, I was seeing an afterimage, not her. She stopped right as he hit the ground at half health and staggered to his feet

"Next time I have a message for you, don't mess with the person whose been training her speed for months, and was given the gem of a swords master. She punched him, and his body shattered, leaving a map, and a book with some writing in it.

"second general, as you will have noticed, we have a new member, Alex, but at the moment, you are to keep watch on him, he has information crucial to our mission, you will not be told what that information is, only that it is necessary that it never reaches anybody from his first world. Your domain controls one End portal, make certain nobody gets to use it" Yours truly, the king of Waves.

When we got into the portal room, one block of the portal on each side was removed, the map had a new tower though, and this one would complete a rough circle like the usual strongholds tend to do. Kira and I had found our latest power, and now we could try for the next Ender Dragon.

-End of Chapter 31-


	32. Cool Control

Minecraft VR Chapter 32: Cool Control

That made both Kira and I at the second state, but this fight was going to be tough, the collective armies were on their way, and Alex was staying put this time. Wolf and I weren't exactly helped by the fact that even with our wings, we are unable to get to the last tower. Eventually we found the location that our map was showing; it was a single house with a giant roof. In the middle of the room was a Nether portal, meaning we would have to reach this areas Nether in order to get further down. When we got there, a wave of heat washed over us, and my wigs went out of control.

"Edward, your flames will burn us up, you need to switch back" Liam cried out.

Damn, that's twice now I couldn't be at full strength. When I did, the flames died down, and I saw we were on a completely flat disk in the middle of the Nether portal. A solitary form descended on us.

This time, the figure was a lot sleeker than anything else, and had dark red trim, and burning hot wings he seemed to be a lot more used to using than I was at the time. He didn't have a weapon, but instead he had four balls of fire surrounding him, and two more in his hands.

"So then, you found me, the last guardian of the collective will, but I doubt you can take on the heat this realm provides for me, this is probably your end."

"Like hell!" I shouted "we're going to kick your ass and then beat the crap out of this world's dragon!"

"Sorry, but something like that isn't for you to decide, if you want to do so, then face me head on."

"Fine, I don't feel like talking much anyhow."

He lunged at me, and the massive flames he generated seemed to create the illusion of a phoenix flying at me. Using the help of Wolf, I managed to avoid it, but I still got singed from the flames. Liam shot at him many times, but I could tell the distortion and heat was getting to him. Every time he lunged at Kira, she would slice him, but he seemed to roll away just in time to avoid the entire attack. I couldn't ignite my armor either, seeing as if I did that, the distortion would make it harder for the other two to do anything. When he got up high enough, he would launch his fireballs at us, but we kept avoiding them, and all they were doing was starting fires that slowed us down a small bit.

Then it happened again, my senses kicked into overdrive, and the phoenix warrior started to slow down again. The distortion made it hard for me to be certain, but I was able to dodge everything he was throwing my way. I ignited my armor a little bit, and used what I generated to slash at him, forcing him back a small bit. His health recovered quickly though, as though the entire world wanted him to win. Not only that, but the flying Ghasts weren't targeting him at all, and were instead targeting us. Liam was having a hard time keeping up, and he was getting stressed out from the amount of things he was concentrating on. His shots were becoming erratic, like he was trying to hit two spots at once.

"Well then, it looks like the second you three fight someone who has an indirect way of fighting, you lose all the legendary abilities I keep hearing about."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but you know a fight in the nether isn't exactly my favorite way to do things."

"Oh? Well then I guess this fight will end in my victory after all."

The battle resumed, all of us were starting to get annoyed with our lack of progress, guys with an auto heal ability and wings are almost too dangerous for us to fight.

"_Wolf, any ideas on how to deal with something like this."_

"_Sorry kid, but something like this isn't good for us, our best option would be to run, but I know your pride won't let you do that."_

"_What about a counter burn?"_

"_Maybe, but you've got to do it quick. your friends won't last very long with two masses of flames in existence."_

Wolf pulled himself back to the forefront of my consciousness, and I held on, igniting my armor at the same time, giving my wings back to me. I channeled he flames away from me, and used it to aim at the general area where the phoenix looked like it was. The problem was that I wasn't used to doing such a feat, so I lost energy way too fast, and had to stop using the mode early. Kira and Liam both looked at me.

"What were you thinking?" Kira asked, "You're a close-range fighter like me, you can't deal with something like that"

"Yeah, but now we know what we have to do, stop his flames" they were shocked.

"What makes you think that's important?" Liam asked.

"When I launched the flames just now, I was watching, while his flames weren't there, he was taking damage without healing, if he loses that ability, we can win."

"Well, none of us can do this job as it is, and my shots aren't aiming properly." Liam replied "without any sort of water, I can't manage to hit anything, I'm not good enough sorry to say."

"Yeah, and you know why?" I asked him, "It's because your letting your emotions get a hold of you, all I'm hearing is "I can't", or "It's because of this", stop making excuses, and slow down, you need water, but there isn't any, so get up, and fight!"

Kira punched me. "What's wrong with you? She yelled out "if he says he can't do it, then maybe it's because he can't do it!"

"Sorry Kira." Liam got up "but it looks like I'm going to have to take Edwards advice here, doing something like giving up because of a little bit of heat isn't really my style. If he's got heat, then I'm going to show him the kind of burns you get when ice meets fire."

He continued on "seven gems to bow." Seven gems flew into the bow, changing it to an Icy blue, and the green highlights on it were replaced by white. 1 gem to both helmet and boots." The respective gems went into their new homes. "Lastly, three gems to the chest plate, and two gems to the leggings." When he said the last part, he was encased in Ice so cold, even the heat of the Nether couldn't touch it. When he shattered it, several parts of it remained on his body, and the green highlights were replaced by red ones. The armor still had its white base though, so the parts of the ice that remained made the suit look incredibly awesome. The arrow tips were changed too; they now had a white tip.

Liam shot one of the arrows slightly ahead and above the phoenix, hitting it dead on. When he shot the Lava, It froze, so the warrior had no place to land, and fell straight into the Lava, extinguishing the flames of the phoenix for the last time. He managed to crawl onto the zone we were on though, but he had nothing for armor anymore but several stumps. As he moved towards us, I noticed he had a sword that seemed to be pulsing energy. Liam hit the hand with the weapon with one of his new arrows, freezing the weapon onto the guy's hand. The next shot hit the guy in the head.

"What was that abut my aim being off?" Liam asked "I'd say it's dead center, and you lost track of how to ignite a real flame." Liam's bow changed its midpoint back to flint, and shot an arrow of fire straight into the heart of the phoenix, and he burst into flames, which didn't stop until he was nothing but ashes.

We went back into the regular world, where I could ignite my flames for real. I mined one block of the floor, and jumped into the room below, which was the chamber that held a fully functional End Portal. When everyone was ready, we jumped in to emerge in a room that usually wasn't in the End, a place where a door with each world number was inscribed in Latin. One group emerged from each portal aside from eight and four, since we entered the portals in both worlds.

Once everyone was gathered, we all opened the door that held an inscription.

"Oh heroes who led down the winding path for endless months, you have finally found the portal to the final End, be warned though, before you stands your last challenge in this Beta, and the most powerful beast I have ever created, If you hope to win, make sure your hearts never waver, and remember, whoever survives this gets a personal meeting with me" signed, the Director

"This is perfect, all that's left is to beat the crap out of this thing, then I'm gonna kick this Director Guys ass."

"Yeah, I'm gonna help out, but afterwards make sure to get one in for me, okay Edward" It was Alex with several guys from my old Squad.

"Who are you?" one of the guys asked him, I think he was from world five

"I'm the guy who beat Four weeks ago; I just didn't enter the portal at the end until today."

"Well fine then," five continued, "let's get this over with."

-End of Chapter 32-


	33. Betas end

Minecraft VR Chapter 33: Beta's end

The groups who were chosen to represent each world had finally gathered, and the path to the Armored Ender Dragon was before us. A small draft permeated the room though, a sense that the entire year and a half long Beta test was barely a joke compared to whatever was beyond the door. If the Director was planning to make the final battle seem incredibly important, he couldn't have done a better job than what he did. Despite the fact that I wanted to kick his ass for setting us up like this, I couldn't help but be impressed by just how real it seemed.

"_Don't forget," Wolf said "we aren't sure yet what will happen to the spirits in you and your friends heads yet"_

"_Yeah, but after all, if this is the end for you guys, at least we can go out with one hell of a bang"_

One of the guys, I believed he was called Adam walked up. He was using a weird kind of armor made out of Redstone, from what I could tell, it was pretty much cloth with wire strapped around it, but hey, anyone who was in here must be pretty good, so I figured I wouldn't comment on It at the earlier meeting.

"so yeah, over at threes section we decided that we are going to go today to take on the dragon instead of waiting a day for reinforcements like the guy from one says we should do, will 8 help out?"

"Sorry man," I said, "I'm waiting for several more people to show up, going right now would be tantamount to going to death"

"Fine, all the glory to three then" he walked off, got his guys together, and opened the door. Everyone who was in room heard it then, the sound of TNT going off simultaneously. Nobody ended up killed, but Adams group was badly damaged, and the only thing protecting us from the Dragon was gone. Once the smoke cleared up properly, I looked around, Kira and Liam were around, and ran over to where I was at. The entire place was ruins now, there was no way to restore it in time, we were going to have to fight now, and all our reinforcements were cut off without the portals, which had been blown up in the explosions.

Alex flew down. "Edward, looks like the dragon is on its way now, we need all Aerial Fliers to take to the skies now, and I'm sorry to say it, but that doesn't involve me anymore, I'm stuck on the ground at the moment."

"No worries, I can handle something like scouting easily"

"It isn't scouting, we need to reduce the Ender population around here, so the ground fighters don't have to worry about foot soldiers, and the archers will worry about the Dragon for now, so stay focused."

I flew off, and looked around. The entire Island was a lot bigger than I would have liked, and a lot of that was Endermen, all of which were coming the group's way. I flew down, and stuck my sword down; hitting a bunch of Endermen, and Flew up before they could teleport. The Endermen teleported above me. My health bar dropped to half before I could retreat back to camp.

"Didn't work, they are now suicidal, they will attack a lone flier"

"Figures, there's no way the final world would be so easy."

Just then the moon folded away, and massive meteors hit the ground, revealing a giant tunnel that probably encircled the entire camp. A normal Ender Dragon came out of it, and promptly rammed each crater, gaining armor each time, and releasing a shockwave that destroyed any players who were around a crater, so basically Adams group, as well as almost everyone else.

The only thing I could say that doesn't make this dragon sound like it came just from hell to take us there would be to say that the Silver armor made it more noticeable. Let's start listing off the changes. First change, It now had a helmet that covered its Head, while showing off the fact that its eyes screamed something like "yay, more toys to play with" I didn't know the dragon had spikes the size of a player either, but the armor showed those off too. That's not counting the tail blade or the four crossbows manned by Endermen, one on each side of the dragon either.

When it landed in the ruins, it swiped its tail blade around the area, killing every remaining Endermen, and doubling its own size with the power of its sacrifices. It then blew black flames, and burnt everyone not from worlds 8 and 1 to a crisp. The guys from one got destroyed by the crossbows though, so just by this thing entering the battle, seven worlds worth of Champions were gone, and damn our odds didn't look very good so far. It blew another column at us, and Alex launched his black flames back at it.

"Looks like my flames work still after all, what about you guys."

Wolf moved forwards in my mind again, igniting our armor for one last battle. Kira moved to her swift knight form, and Liam went with his Ice variant of his new armor. When the dragon's flames ceased, Liam shot several arrows at it, dealing a very small amount of damage to it. It used its tail again, and wolf and I ran forward, blocking the tail blade with the Claw blade, giving Kira a chance to dart up to the dragon and hit it several times before she had to retreat to avoid being blasted by the flames. I tried to launch the Tail back, but the dragon simply twitched and I was thrown into a pillar, reducing my health by an annoying amount. The dragon flew up, and Alex and I launched up with it, making sure to avoid any areas where its tail blade or flames could reach without burning it. It shot the flames anyways though, so it got its own Wither effect, and got hit by Liam's Ice arrows, which I bet it didn't like very well. It landed down anyhow, and as it did so, I launched downwards towards its head like a meteor, using the extra momentum to force an ABS hit on it, but I still had to leave the area before I became barbeque.

The Dragon roared and began to bellow flames everywhere, to the point where I had to land beside the others and work with Alex to create a flame shield big enough to protect the four of us. The entire area was covered in massive flames, and we couldn't do much but small damages to it, while it just had to hit us once to kill us. The second it let its flames subside, I formed my flames into small little sparks, and shot them at it. Alex and Liam followed right after once they caught on to what Wolf had noticed. Because of all its programming, it would act like a real animal; all we had to do was make sure it was too preoccupied with fight or flight to attack us. There was the slight bit where if it decided to attack instead, we might not make a good shield in time, but hey, what could go wrong?

Suddenly a figure parted the sky, and a black guy in armor fell on top of the dragon. He stood up, and Spread wings made of Metal. The dragon's armor fell apart, and its body faded into a dark light the man absorbed into his own body. Everyone's Wither Gems flew out of their inventory, as well as the cursed gems from a nearby Ender Chest.

The guy's armor changed to the point where it resembled a dragon, and his swords hilt looked like a snake. The dragon armor changed as well, its spiked edges elongating, and several bulky areas losing weight, to the point where I recognized the design. The guy had used his one shot ability to create the gear we were all told about when we entered beta, but only in the form of a legend.

_**Once there was a being whose strength rivalled even the Ender Dragon and the Wither, seeing as it was born of the two. It had all the powers of both the dragon and the snake, but one more ability as well, it was capable of existing only if a Wither cursed by the flames of hell was felled by one who stands before the king of dragons. Once those two situations are fulfilled, the true nightmare will begin, and the unworthy shall be destroyed.**_

It spoke "welcome to the final stage, you who would stand before me, the god of this world, please, allow me to finish the game in my own favor."

"Sorry Director" I answered, "but I came this far to kick your ass, and I'm gonna do it no matter how many things you absorb."

"Oh and how do you plan to do that?" he asked

"Simple, my one shot ability, you set up the worst circumstances possible for yourself"

"A one shot?" he asked, confusion evident in his voice "there's no auto kill one shot available though"

"Right" I answered, "but I've saved my one shot this whole time, knowing exactly how I was going to use it to get rid of the last boss, 100 square teleportation."

"And what would that do to help you?"

"Watch" I activated the ability, selecting the ground under me as a midpoint, and teleported us all to the hunting grounds for my wolves back in world 8.

When we arrived there, Wolf retreated from my mind to tell the pack what was happening, at the same time my flames vanished, but the rest of my stuff stayed in ignited mode, meaning I still had my dual wielding.

"So scary," the director added, "you went from an open field where you could avoid me to an enclosed space for me to stalk you."

"but there is one advantage to this area" I said, my mind completely calmed by the familiar scenery I had helped build "I have more than a platoons worth of wolves in this one space who said that they would wait for me, all I needed to do was set the first half of the teleport there, and this area would never despawn as long as the core system is intact."

The wolves jumped out of everywhere, and began to run throughout the entire forest looking for the director. When they found him, they all tore at him; the Final battle mode giving them full control over their own actions, and their only goal right now was the defeat of their old creator. When he finally struggled to his feet, he took out the entire platoon of wolves in one strike with his blade. The spirits separated, and made it to me before the flames had the chance to consume them.

When the last one reached me, wolf came back.

"_Well kid, they did all they could, but this guy's still around, hopefully your friends have their own abilities to use"_

Kira stepped forward, and her armor shone. "Now it's my turn, I swore I would help player win, so I'm sorry about this. She ran forward, her speed temporarily doubled from its previously high parameters, and rammed him into Lava. He rose, and Liam stepped forwards.

"I became the archer so that I could take advantage of my own one shot. The director flew out of the lava, and then froze in the air.

"my one shot stops a person's movement for a full minute, wings like those break after 30 seconds, we could sit here and wait for them to break, but I believe Edward here wanted to say something first."

"Like hell I have anything to say to him, I'm not going to waste this chance though."

I dropped every piece of armor I had, and my sword as well, leaving only a white t shirt, and blue jeans. I then ran straight at the Director, and punched his face, right where his armor didn't cover. When the knockback finished, he right before the lava. Liam got him this time, ripping the armor off his body. Alex walked up to him.

"Thanks to you, my mind is permanently split, I'm going to get at least a little satisfaction from this."

Alex switched to a heavy armor that resembled the one Coach used to wear, but it had two gems in it, one light, and one dark. Alex punched the Director so hard; he flew to the bottom of the lava before he died.

The world started splitting apart, returning to the nothingness it once was. It wouldn't ever completely leave us though, we now had each other, and the spirits we had met wouldn't ever really go away. This game was over, but new things emerge all the time, and without high stakes, we could actually enjoy the next one together. Before that though, the End poem appeared before us, a signal to the future ahead of us.

-End of Minecraft VR beta-

So then everyone, since the Beta is over, I'll need suggestions for scenarios that you all would like me to use, otherwise ill end the Minecraft VR story here and move on to fictionpress to work on an related story called Gemblade VR, which will include these characters, but an original setting, and a more RPG feel to it. As always though, I will be watching VR, and I will do at least one more Chapter before I decide if I end Minecraft VR here, or keep going with new chapters


	34. After VR

Minecraft VR Final Chapter: After VR.

As the world disintegrated around us, Wolf howled. I couldn't blame him either, despite everything; this was his home after all. Now that I thought about it though, this was kind of my home too, I had lived here for months, and fought to keep it around, and now it was all going to disappear, and all that time was wasted. Damn, a full year and a half's efforts wasted, all I really needed to do was win, the rest of it was unnecessary, but that wasn't exactly true either, because of how much I built, I managed to find new friends, maybe that was what was important after all.

"_Damn kid, you did what you wanted, you kicked that director guy's ass, and you're still not satisfied" Wolf spoke up_

"_Look who's talking" I responded "you sure you're gonna be okay cooped up all this time in my head?"_

"_No, but I've got no choice in the matter now, so I guess I'm stuck with you."_

I got off my bed in the real world, and got ready to go outside free for once. I put on a white t-shirt, and a blue jacket. I wore Blue jeans as well. I was going to have to go shopping soon; this outfit has a definite need of an update. Maybe I should ask Kira if she knew a good place, heck, even Alex would probably have better sense with something like that then me.

Today I wasn't going anywhere in particular, so I ended up wandering around a fair bit, even though it wasn't exactly safe where I was at, there wasn't very much many people could do to me anymore. I still had to be careful though, just because I wasn't in VR anymore didn't mean I was safe, and I had a fair bit of enemies even before the VR incidents, where I'm pretty sure I made several hundred more people hate my guts.

Just then Kira walked up beside me, followed By Liam. It wasn't much of a surprise Alex didn't show, I got the feeling he wasn't used to everyone congratulating him for helping out us, especially because his gems, the duality gems, had two parts to them, the Destroyer, and The Creator. Neither of them was very good in this world either, and I bet their arguing would make living hard for Alex for a while, but I bet he would end up making it.

As we kept walking, a special issue of the local newspaper was lying on a bench. The main article in it was about VR, and about how a certain group of four people beat the creator single-handedly, and were nowhere to be found for questioning. Figures, I thought, they were looking for a group of kids based off people's recollections of us, and so many stories were made even while we were in VR that I knew we would be safe for a while.

Of course though, someday it would all catch up to us, and we would be forced to testify before a court to get this director guy imprisoned, and I somehow doubted that he would really get what he needed anyways, so I didn't see the point in going. But hey, now that the four of us were around, maybe it would all work out decently, and our lives wouldn't be all that different. Suddenly a harsh voice echoed through my mind, and broke my concentration.

"Hey, you're that cheater guy my kid bro told me about, the guy who stole from everyone, and took all the glory for himself, why don't you and your little friends here pay up."

The guy was something like 6 foot 5, built like a football player, but he held himself in such a ridiculous stance it was clear he had never been in an actual fight, and his little tough guy act was about the best he could do to intimidate me.

I stood up, and let wolfs mind and mine meld together like we did to ignite my armor in VR. Kira and Liam did the same thing.

"Fine, I will pay you, now then, what do you want us to pay you back in"

"Never mind money, I'm gonna show you three punks just how tough a real fight is"

The guy charged at me, his fist rose to try to hit me in the head, and his other arm ready to choke me if I dodged to the left. Instead of letting either of those two hit me, I rolled to the left of his fist, coming up behind him, and stuck my leg out, letting his momentum carry him face first into the concrete. Next he decided that Liam was the weakest target, and charged at him. As he swung his fists, Liam used his arms to bat aside the attacks like they were paper. Lastly, he decided that he was going to try to attack Kira. I tried to hold in my laughter as the guy charged, then looked surprised when she vanished. He didn't seem to get that she had moved behind him, but he sure felt the pain as her fist hit his spine, rendering him temporarily immobile.

We kept walking, and then I remembered what I was going to ask Kira

"You know any good places to get a change of clothes around here, these old things won't work all that well for me anymore."

"Yeah, I know one good place that does special orders without asking questions, you'll want that design that was on the armor you used after all, and I was thinking of going there anyways, so we might as well get going."

"oh yeah guys, after we do that, there's somewhere else I want to check out, somewhere my mom mentioned we should go if we ever got the chance to check it out today, something about another VR game, this one's going to be made with a lot of the same data as Minecraft VR from what I heard."

"Well then Liam, if we are going to get there too today, we better get going, by the way, what's the name of this supposed game anyhow"

"It's called Gemblade VR" Liam answered, and by the sounds of it, he was going to play even if we didn't do so.

"Yeah, it is, I heard about it too, but you know, a three party team might not be enough from what I heard." It was Alex

"So then, what about Four?" I asked him "let's get going, from the sounds of it, we have a lot to do today."

-End Of Minecraft VR-


End file.
